South Korea reports 9th MERS-linked death, cases now total 108

The government has vowed all-out efforts to eradicate the outbreak of the respiratory illness since the first case was confirmed on May 20 -- a 68-year-old South Korean man with a recent history of travel to four countries in the Middle East. As of Tuesday, more than 3,000 people have been quarantined while more than 2,200 schools, including kindergartens, have been temporarily closed. South Korea now has the second-largest number of MERS patients after Saudi Arabia, which has reported over 1,000 confirmed cases since the virus emerged there for the first time in 2012. Globally, since September 2012, the World Health Organization has been notified of at least 1,185 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS, including at least 443 related deaths. Source: Kyodo