SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea's prime minister said this morning that the nation is now virtually free of the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome virus that killed 36 people and sickened nearly 200 since an outbreak was declared in May.
Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn in a government meeting urged people to return to normalcy as the country hasn't seen a new MERS case in more than three weeks.
More than 16,000 people had been isolated at hospitals and homes as the government attempted to stymie the disease, and the last person was lifted from quarantine Monday.
"It is the judgment of medical experts and the government that people can now feel safe," Hwang said in the meeting, according to the prime minister's office.
MERS was discovered in 2012, and the cases had been mostly centered in Saudi Arabia before the outbreak in South Korea.
The MERS virus belongs to the family of coronaviruses.
Experts say South Korea's overcrowded emergency rooms and hospital wards might have contributed to a wider-than-expected transmission of the virus, which usually spreads poorly between people.
A Section on 07/28/2015