A South Korean man died of complications from Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) on October 25, 2015. According to officials, this is the first death related to the virus in the country in more than three months. The 66-year-old was diagnosed in June after contracting the deadly virus at the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, said officials with the health ministry.
The person was later said to be cured of the disease but had been battling an acute lung ailment that was a complication resulting from the virus.
Seoul had declared the outbreak effectively over at the end of July. However, earlier this month a 35-year-old man said to have been cured of the virus was re-diagnosed.
The new diagnosis is huge blow to South Korea’s hopes of being declared free. The disease, which has infected 186 people in the country, killing 36 of them, since its outbreak in May.
The virus is considered a deadlier but less infectious cousin of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed hundreds of people when it appeared in Asia in 2003.
Advertisement