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| Daniel R. Lucey |
In an article titled, "MERS in Korea: Why This Outbreak Can Be Stopped Soon," which he contributed to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank on June 7, he wrote that the virus is life threatening only for four groups of people having pre-existing diseases.
The four groups are those who have lung disease, kidney disease, immunodeficiency or diabetes.
"(I)n most persons without the above four pre-existing conditions, the MERS virus causes less severe or mild illness, or even no symptoms at all," Lucey said.
MERS is much less contagious than Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which devastated China in the early 2000s, he said.
Until July 2003, more than 8,000 Chinese people were infected with the deadly SARS virus and 10.9 percent of them died.
"MERS outbreaks are mostly linked to hospitals, and these outbreaks have been stopped in at least six other countries, preventing MERS epidemics from spreading into the general population of any country," Lucey said.
"Genetic sequencing in several laboratories of the virus from at least two Korean patients (one hospitalized in China) does not show any evidence of a mutation that would make this virus more contagious than any other MERS virus in the Middle East."
He noted that a rapid public health response, effective communication with the public and transparency are the keys to controlling the virus.
To prevent future outbreaks, the U.S. expert recommended that Korea lead rigorous epidemiological studies.
"Indeed, Korea can provide valuable lessons to the world in terms of how they responded to stop this MERS outbreak. Perhaps a better understanding of how this virus spreads from person to person will be gained by rigorous epidemiological studies," he said.
"Perhaps the first effective antiviral or antibody-based therapies for MERS will come from Korea. Perhaps a stronger international effort to develop MERS vaccines for people and not only camels will follow this outbreak, perhaps spearheaded by Korea or China."
For more details of the article, click CSIS Korea Chair Platform http://csis.org/publication/mers-korea-why-outbreak-can-be-stopped-soon.
