As MERS Virus Spreads, Key Questions and Answers
The disease has infected dozens in South Korea. Here's how MERS works—and why it's so difficult to fight.
It's starting to feel like the year of infectious diseases. Just as Ebola is winding down in West Africa, another potentially fatal illness has jumped from the Middle East to South Korea and China, spreading fears of a global pandemic.
The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus—commonly known as MERS—has killed nearly 40% of the 1,179 people it's sickened since emerging in Jordan in 2012. Many more people may have unknowingly had less serious bouts of the disease, which is believed to spread from bats to camels to people.
Key questions and answers about MERS:
So far, the respiratory virus has had a hard time spreading from person to person. Most of its victims had direct contact with camels, or caught
