Acting Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan on Wednesday pleaded for trust and urged cooperation to help fight the further spread of the Middle East respiratory syndrome.

“In order to prevent the spread of MERS, we need your trust and cooperation,” he said in a statement released at the Health and Welfare Ministry.

“As MERS is only being transmitted through medical institutions, the key to preventing MERS is to stop the transmission inside and between hospitals,” he said.

He also encouraged people to check the medical facilities announced by the government to have been exposed to MERS and for people who have visited the facilities in question to first report to health authorities and follow due process instead of visiting a different hospital.

The government also advised that people in need of medical assistance or treatment visit nearby hospitals instead of large-scale hospitals. In cases of emergencies, people should go to hospitals with separate emergency treatment facilities, they said.

South Korea’s MERS toll as of Wednesday morning reached nine deaths and 108 confirmed cases.

With regard to prevalent criticism towards poor communication and information sharing among government bodies and municipalities, Choi said that they would work to minimize such confusion.

“As MERS infection is occurring simultaneously and at a large scale, there tends to be confusion,” he said.

He added that they will abide by the principle of releasing all countermeasures information in real time through the headquarters set up at the Health Ministry.

To a question of whether he expected the MERS spread to abate this week, Choi said that “proper management” of the situation would be key, noting that the incubation period of those connected to the 14th patient infected at Samsung Medical Center ends this week.

“The government is putting maximum capacity with a sense of urgency that if the MERS situation is not controlled this week, things will get much more difficult,” he added.

Meanwhile, ruling Saenuri Party chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung echoed the government’s call for cooperation saying, “At this rate, it would be safe to say that (the MERS situation) will begin to settle down.”

Adding that the people should trust the scientific views and world-class skills of Korean medical professionals, Kim said, “There are a very few cases of NIMBY (‘not in my backyard’) syndrome where they stigmatize (MERS) patients or oppose thedesignation of their nearby hospitals to accommodate them. That should never be the case when the country is in hardship.”

From news reports ()


koreaherald@heraldcorp.com