A woman wearing a surgical mask to prevent contracting MERS in Seoul, South Korea. Photo: AFP
Those of you worried about the world’s latest medical scare, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), coming to Jakarta can rest easy. For now at least.
Yesterday, it was reported that a two-year-old boy, identified as M, had been placed into medical quarantine in Jakarta after he was suspected of contracting MERS during a recent trip to South Korea.
Fortunately those suspicious turned out to be unfounded. Mohammad Subuh, the Health Ministry general director for disease control and environmental health said on Wednesday that a test conducted on the child had proven that he did not have MERS.
“The result is negative,” Subuh said as quoted by Tempo.
Subuh said that MERS patients should have begun showing symptoms within 15 days of contracting the virus and that M had yet to shows any signs of the disease after that time period, although testing was also done to prove he was not infected.
We’re very happy to hear that the tests came back negative, of course for the sake of M but also because we’re pretty concerned how Jakarta’s medical infrastructure would handle an outbreak of MERS in the capital. Hopefully we’ll never have to find out how that scenario would play out.
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