Hospital Outbreaks of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Daejeon, South Korea, 2015

Hospital Outbreaks of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Daejeon, South Korea, 2015

Jung Wan Park, Keon-Joo Lee, Kang Hyoung Lee, Sang-Hyup Lee, Jung Rae Cho, Jin Won Mo, Soo Young Choi, Geun Yong Kwon, Ji-Yeon Shin, Jee-Young Hong, Jin Kim, Miyeon Yeon, Jong-Seok Oh, Hae-Sung Nam

From May through July 2015, a total of 26 cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome were reported from 2 hospitals in Daejeon, South Korea, including 1 index case and 25 new cases. We examined the epidemiologic features of these cases and found an estimated median incubation period of 6.1 days (8.8 days in hospital A and 4.6 days in hospital B). The overall attack rate was 3.7% (4.7% in hospital A and 3.0% in hospital B), and the attack rates among inpatients and caregivers in the same ward were 12.3% and 22.5%, respectively. The overall case-fatality rate was 44.0% (28.6% in hospital A and 63.6% in hospital B). The use of cohort quarantine may have played a role in preventing community spread, but additional transmission occurred among members of the hospital cohort quarantined together. Caregivers may have contributed in part to the transmission.

2017

Middle East respiratory syndrome, MERS, hospital-acquired condition, Outbreaks, Viruses, Zoonoses

DOI: 10.3201/eid2306.160120

Emerging Infectious Diseases

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Infectious and parasitic diseases, Medicine

EN