Source: Thailand Medical News Jan 08, 2020 6 years, 3 weeks, 18 hours, 55 minutes ago
Health authorities in
South Korea has put a 36-year-old Chinese woman under isolated treatment amid concerns that she brought back a form of
viral pneumonia that has sickened dozens in mainland
China and Hong Kong in recent weeks.
The
South Korea Centers of Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said that the woman, who was diagnosed with
viral pneumonia on Tuesday following two business trips to China last month, represented the country's first possible case of the respiratory illness whose cause remains unknown.
The middle-aged unidentified woman, who works for a South Korean company near capital Seoul, has experienced cough and fever since returning from a five-day trip to the Chinese city of Xiamen on Dec. 30, the South Korea Centers of Disease Control and Prevention told
Thailand Medical News.
The woman had also visited
Wuhan, the mainland Chinese city where the outbreak originated, for five days in mid-December. She told South Korean doctors she made no contact with animals while she was there and didn't visit a seafood market in
Wuhan's suburbs where most of the cases have been traced to.
The
South Korea Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said the woman was in relatively good condition and undergoing tests at a hospital south of Seoul to confirm whether she has the same illness as the
Wuhan patients.
South Korean officials have tightened monitoring of people entering from
China and advised travelers to avoid contact with animals and take extra care in personal hygiene.
The yet to be identified
viral pneumonia disease has sent 59 people to the hospital in Wuhan in central Hubei province. As of Sunday, seven were in critical condition, while the rest were stable. A few more hundred Chinese individuals have been put into quarantine.
While in Hong Kong, a total of 15 patients were being treated Sunday for symptoms including fever and respiratory infection after recent visits to
Wuhan. It is not clear whether they have the same illness as the
Wuhan patients.
Singapore and Thailand has also put certain Chinese travellers into quarantine as a result of them displaying symptoms but it is not confirmed whether they were actually suffering from the same
viral pneumonia disease or just some other respiratory disease or common flu.
