Hong Kong- Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSAR), said 18 people having close contact with a South Korean man infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), have been sent to a quarantine camp.
It said on Sunday in Hong Kong that the two South Korean women, who had earlier refused to be quarantined, have joined them.
The region government said the city was on high alert over MERS.
He said the two Korean women were among 18 plane passengers who sat close to the MERS patient having been tracked down in the Causeway Bay shopping district and quarantined.
Ko Wing-man, Secretary for Food and Health of HKSAR government said with the assistance from the diplomatic personnel of South Korea in Hong Kong, the two women finally accepted to be quarantined.
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“This is very important because once they are in the quarantine camp, our medical personnel from the Center for Health Protection will be able to chip in and conduct medical assessment.
Ko said health authorities have made plans for the 18 plane passengers to be quarantined for two weeks, at the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village in Sai Kung.
He said a 44-year old South Korean MERS patient flew from Seoul to Hong Kong on Tuesday before heading to China’s mainland by bus.
Ko said he was thought to have contracted the deadly virus from his father, and travelled against the advice of doctors.
He said the man, who was confirmed as China’ s first imported MERS case, was held in isolation at a hospital in Huizhou in China’s southern province of Guangdong.
MERS was first identified in humans in 2012, and the virus was similar to that which causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. (Xinhua/NAN)