Author(s)

Woo Hyung Lee¹, David Ahn², Kunmin Kim³, Peter S. Park⁴, Seog In Moon⁵, Hark Joon Lee⁶, David Park⁷, Hyun Seung Shin⁸, Eunice Kang⁹, Daniel Choo^10*, David S. Chung^9,10*

¹Biotechnology, School of Science, Hong Kong University of Science of Technology, Hong Kong, China.
²Department of Economics, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA.
³Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
⁴Department of Biology, College of Art and Science, Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
⁵Department of Biology, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, USA.
⁶Department of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
⁷College of Art and Science, Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁸Division of Biomedical Informatics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
⁹Youth with Talents, Fairfax, VA, USA.
¹⁰School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) is a potentially fatal respiratory viral infection that has had outbreaks in the Middle East and Asia region starting in 2012. As recent as 2015, MERS had outbreaks in South Korea, resulting in 36 deaths among 186 infected patients. The purpose of this thesis is to gain an in-depth understanding of how this viral infection behaves in outbreaks and how it is spread around the globe. To gain insight, real time analysis was performed under a case study methodology based on pooled data from the Ministry of Health & Welfare of South Korea. We calculated a striated mortality rate based on gender, age, and the presence of pre-existing health conditions ranging from heart, lung, and kidney diseases. We found that MERS outbreak follows the pattern of a point source outbreak, largely spurred by the patient-referral system under the universal healthcare system in South Korea. The purpose of this case is to discuss the benefits and challenges of such patient referral system, and to offer a possible solution in improving transparency between healthcare providers and the government under a universal healthcare system to prevent future outbreaks.

Infectious Diseases, Respiratory Viral Infections, Public Health, Disease Prevention

Lee, W. , Ahn, D. , Kim, K. , Park, P. , Moon, S. , Lee, H. , Park, D. , Shin, H. , Kang, E. , Choo, D. and Chung, D. (2020) Case Study of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) Outbreak in South Korea and Future Implications. Advances in Infectious Diseases, 10, 76-89. doi: 10.4236/aid.2020.102007.