News Health & Medicine

Deadly MERS spreads in small cluster in South Korea

Thirty people have virus in outbreak, including China’s first case

Monkey cell infected with the virus that causes MERS

INFECTED  The virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, (shown in yellow infecting a monkey cell in the lab) has sickened 1,179 people worldwide, including 30 in an outbreak in South Korea. 

NIAID/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) 

By Tina Hesman Saey

- More than 2 years ago

South Korea has closed schools and canceled some public events amid concerns that an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome, known as MERS, could become a pandemic.