South Korea said it would adopt measures to avoid the possible spread of the Zika virus, which was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Its Health Minister, Chung Youb, said on Tuesday during an emergency meeting in Seoul that even though there were no cases in the country so far, foreign visitors would be carefully monitored.
She said the urgent adoption of such measures had become imperative because the country had faced criticism last year for its slow reaction to an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS, which killed 38 people.
She said even though the latest outbreak was centred on Central and South America, there were fears it could spread to tropical parts of Asia.
Youb said the possibility of the spread to tropical parts of Asia had become a concern to government in an area where diseases like dengue, carried by the same species of mosquito, were prevalent.
Meanwhile, a senior official at Malaysia’s Health Ministry said that Zika had not yet been detected, but that "if it is introduced by an infected Malaysian or by a visitor to Malaysia, it can spread quickly."
The WHO said in Brazil that there may have been 1.5 million cases of Zika virus and that the number of cases in the Americas could grow to four million within 12 months.
The UN body declared an international health emergency in August 2014 with West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, allowing the organisation to issue rules to combat the epidemic. (dpa/NAN)
