Taiwan has lifted the quarantine on a South Korean boy suspected of having Middle East Respirator Syndrome (MERS).
MERS is a viral respiratory illness that is relatively new to humans. First reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia, it has spread to other countries. Those infected with the virus develop fevers, start coughing and have shortness of breath. Many of those infected with the virus have died.
Tests revealed that a South Korean boy who was quarantined at a hospital earlier in the day on Sunday for developing a fever does not have MERS, the Tainan City government said Sunday afternoon, according to Want China Times.
The boy, a member of the South Korean U-12 baseball team, arrived in Taiwan on July 22 for the 2015 U-12 Baseball World Cup of the World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) in Tainan, the city's Department of Health director Lin Sheng-che told reporters.
He later developed a cough and sore throat and his worsened on Saturday after he went swimming then was in an air-conditioned room for quite a while, Lin said, according to Cihan.
By Sunday morning, the boy developed a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit and was taken to Tainan Sin-Lau Hospital in the southern Taiwan city, where he was placed into quarantine and taken out later the same day.
Even though this happened in Taiwan, the boy was from South Korea. This means that as long as the boy was found to be healthy and not having the virus then it was safe for him to be taken out of quarantine. South Korea didn't have to do anything special to have him released, and nothing indicates that it was involved with the procedure.
This information means that since no new actual cases of MERS have been reported for the past 21 days, South Korea has potentially contained the MERS outbreak, according to the Financial Times.
The official declaration of the end of the outbreak is expected to be made in late August, as the World Health Organization's rules require a four-week waiting period after the final MERS patient recovers fully.
