AFP, SEOUL: North Korea has intensified screening and vowed "watertight" measures to ward off the MERS virus as an outbreak in South Korea killed 15 and sparked widespread alarm. Officials have stepped up screening for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and quarantine measures at the international airport and at border crossings, said Chosun Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper based in Japan. "Central and regional health officials are making thorough and watertight preparations to block any passage of the MERS virus into the country," it said. Senior health ministry official Pak Myong-Su, in an essay in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Sunday, noted "growing concerns in a neighbouring country" about the outbreak.
Pyongyang has so far shown no sign of closing the only border crossing with the South, into the Kaesong joint industrial zone in the North.
The outbreak also sparked alarm elsewhere in Asia including Hong Kong, which last week advised its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to South Korea.
Meanwhile, in Seoul, the growing outbreak that has infected 145 forced one of the nation's biggest hospitals to suspend most services.
The latest fatality from MERS was a 62-year-old man who died yesterday afternoon in the southern port city of Busan, the city council said. He was diagnosed on June 7 after being infected in Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul -- a major hospital and the epicentre of more than 70 cases.
In order to prevent further infections among patients and medical staff, Samsung hospital on Sunday temporarily suspended most of its operations.