A teacher checks the body temperature of students in an elementary school in Seoul, South Korea, on June 11, 2015. A total of 2,431 schools in South Korea have closed due to the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)
Infections with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) abated in South Korea as four more cases added on Friday, while one more death was reported, the health ministry said.
Four more people tested positive for the virus, bringing the total contagion to 126, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Among the new cases were three people contracting the virus from the 14th patient for three days from May 27 at the emergency room of the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul.
The remaining case was a 70-year-old woman who also caught the virus from the 14th patient at a hospital in Pyeongtaek, some 60 km south of Seoul.
The 51st female patient, 72, died of the MERS, raising the death toll to 11. She caught the virus from patient zero at St. Mary's Hospital in Pyeongtaek.
Friday is the last day of the two-week incubation period as the 14th patient stayed at the Samsung hospital by May 29. The 14th patient, called super spreader, has infected 60 people at the Samsung hospital for three days to May 29.
The cases infected at the Samsung hospital dipped from 10 on Thursday to three on Friday. Unless another super spreader appears, the MERS infection is not expected to spread further.
According to a Gallup Korea survey of 1,002 adults, 58 percent of respondents expected the MERS to abate in the next couple of days.
The number of people quarantined reduced for the first time to 3,680 on Friday from 3,805 on Thursday since the first case was discovered on May 20. Those freed from quarantine totaled 1,249 as of Friday.
Kwon Duk-cheol, head of the central headquarters for MERS management, told a press briefing that there is little possibility for the human-to-human transmission of the MERS virus in the air and in the regional communities.
President Park Geun-hye visited the central headquarters of MERS control in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, for an on-site inspection after delaying her planned trip to the United States next week.
Park talked on the phone with U.S. President Barack Obama, who said he understood Park's decision to postpone her travel to Washington. Park said she hoped to reschedule her U.S. visit at an earliest possible date.
