Alarm over an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea spread on Thursday with North Korea calling for border checks while hundreds more schools closed in the South and authorities reported five new cases, Reuters reported. President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea has demanded that everything be done to halt the outbreak which began two weeks ago, brought into the country by a South Korean man returning from a business trip to the Middle East. Two people have died in South Korea. With 35 cases, South Korea has the most infections outside the Middle East where the disease first appeared in 2012, and where most of the 440 fatalities have been. About 1,600 people have been quarantined in South Korea, most of them at home but some in medical institutions, a health ministry official said.
