Ministry of Health and Welfare

¨ Table 1. Current status of MERS cases in Republic of Korea

* Age, sex and comorbidity of deaths

- Sex: Male 22 (66.7%), female 11 (33.3%)

- Age above 60 years old: 27 (81.8 %)

- Comorbidity: the number of high-risk patients in old age or with underlying medical conditions such as cardio-cerebrovascular disease, cancer and chronic respiratory disease is 30 (90.9%).

** The states of 26 cases are stable and those of 9 cases unstable.

¨ Table 2. Current status of MERS quarantine in Republic of Korea

¨ Comprehensive measures for infection control within hospitals

- The government will come up with comprehensive countermeasures for infection prevention and control by seriously considering problems of the current infection management within hospitals.

- Ways under consideration to improve the current infection prevention and control system involve:

a. sharply increasing the number of infection control specialists, strengthening medical facilities needed to control infectious diseases, and building a strong network between small and medium-sized hospitals and professional advisers.

b. strengthening facilities and devices needed to deal with infection within emergency medical institutions, and reforming the system of emergency medical service delivery in order to reduce the overcrowding in large hospitals' emergency rooms.

c. changing the structure of wards to keep treatments for infected patients and general patients strictly separated; and reducing multi-bed rooms.

d. establishing systematic ways to provide medical services tailored to the needs of individual patients through a strengthened cooperative network between hospitals and clinics.

e. reforming the current health insurance payment system.

- These plans will be drawn up until the end of July, and will be discussed to reach a social consensus before establishing comprehensive, practicable measures.

¨ In relation to providing diagnostic reagents for MERS-CoV

- It was reported that the government has first provided only Samsung Medical Center (Seoul) with diagnostic reagents for detecting MERS-CoV. However, any university hospitals have never asked the government for the diagnostic reagents since the first MERS case occurred on May 20.

- In response to the oral request of Samsung Medical Center (Seoul) to give diagnostic reagents for MERS-CoV, the government provided the diagnostic reagents and positive control materials on May 31. (The hospital made a written request on June 3.), and later, as the hospital made an additional request (in writing on June 4), the government provided them too.

- The government also provided Hallym University Medical Center (Dongtan) with the diagnostic reagents on June 2 and June 4, as it made requests orally on June 1 (and in writing on June 2), and orally on June 4 (and in writing on June 4) respectively.