Thai woman quarantined for MERS testing. Why?
A Thai woman returning from South Korea is voluntarily in quarantine to check whether she has contracted the MERS virus. But was she anywhere near the hospitals where the infections have occurred?
Thai woman quarantined for MERS testing. Why? It is better to be safe than sorry, the saying goes.
Thus an unidentified Thai woman who recently returned from Seoul, South Korea has checked herself into a Samut Prakan hospital for testing to see whether she contracted the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS) virus during her trip.
She appeared healthy and had no fever, said Dr Sawat Apiwajjaneewong of the Samut Prakan provincial public health office, but she wanted to be quarantined so that she and her family would feel comfortable if it is found that she had not been infected.
The hospital reported the case to Ministry of Public Health and put the patient in a CCTV-installed sterilisation room for monitoring for two weeks. Her condition was being observed by medical experts and it would take about a week to determine if she has the virus.
A medical team has been deployed to check on the woman’s relatives at her family home. The measures were in compliance with the ministry’s and the World Health Organisation’s regulations, Dr Sawat said.
The woman herself, however, should have a good idea whether or not there is any chance she became infected. Did she visit a hospital while in Seoul?
Thus far all the infections, apart from the first infection in a victim who had returned from Saudi Arabia, have originated in a small number of hospitals. The disease has not spread to the outside community and yesterday the World Health Organisation urged South Korea to reopen thousands of schools that have been closed during the outbreak.