South Korea reports first two MERS deaths

South Korea’s Health Ministry has announced the death of two people from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has so far infected dozens of people in the Asian country.

According to a Tuesday report by the Yonhap news agency, a 58-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man, who had been confirmed to have the virus in late May, were the first victims of the killer virus in South Korea.  

The news agency had earlier said that 25 people had been diagnosed with the disease.

Nearly 700 people in South Korea have been exposed directly or indirectly to the virus and quarantined or placed under special observation.

The outbreak in South Korea has been traced to the original case of a 68-year-old man diagnosed with the virus after coming back from Saudi Arabia.

MERS is a cousin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The virus first emerged in the Middle East, and was discovered in September 2012 in a Qatari man who had traveled to Saudi Arabia.

The virus, which causes coughing, fever and pneumonia, does not appear to be as contagious as SARS, which killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic.

ERS has affected more than 20 countries, with the most cases being in Saudi Arabia, where more than 400 people have died as a result of the disease since 2012. No vaccine or cure exists yet for MERS.

Future epidemic to kill 33 million 

The new cases of MERS come as Bill Gates, the US billionaire and the co-founder of Microsoft, has recently expressed concern over the possibility of the breakout of a major epidemic across the world in the near future.

“I rate the chance of a nuclear war within my lifetime as being fairly low," the 59-year-old philanthropist said in a recent interview, adding, “I rate the chance of a widespread epidemic, far worse than Ebola, in my lifetime, as well over 50 percent.” 

Gates further said last year's outbreak of Ebola in West Africa highlighted the world’s unpreparedness in dealing with infectious diseases. 

Ebola is a form of hemorrhagic fever, whose symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces, or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses. The epidemic has so far killed thousands of people in West Africa.  

Gates, meanwhile, estimated that the next endemic in the world could kill 33 million people in 250 days. The number is almost equal to the population of Canada. 

"We've created, in terms of spread, the most dangerous environment that we've ever had in the history of mankind," he noted. 

The Spanish Flu, which was the last widespread epidemic the world has seen, left between 30 and 50 million people dead across the globe between 1918 and 1919.

MR/MHB/AS

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