DAY BREAK 06:00 WHO team in Korea to assess MERS outbreak

ARIRANG NEWS 06:00 Coming up today,... a team of medical experts from the World Health Organization arrives in Korea to assist and advise the government in efforts to contain the MERS outbreak. Prime Minister nominee Hwang Kyo-ahn denies ethical lapses on the first day of his confirmation hearing at the National Assembly. Plus,... in a bold pledge,... the G7 vows to completely wipe out the world economy′s dependence on carbon by the end of the century. Stay tuned for these stories and more. Hello.... to our viewers around the world, it′s 6 a.m. on Tuesday, June ninth here in Seoul. Thanks for joining us,... I′m Mark Broome. Title: WHO team in Korea to assess MERS outbreak We begin with the latest on the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS outbreak that has Korea on edge. With public resentment rising over its weak initial response to the outbreak, the Korean government will hold a meeting every morning from Tuesday to better monitor the ever-changing situation. Presided over by acting Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan, ministers and officers of related ministries will share information and discuss ways to end the crisis. Meanwhile, an inspection team from the World Health Organization arrived in Korea on Monday to help assess the outbreak and come up with additional measures to contain the virus. During their four-day investigation period, the team, joined by Korean authorities, will be checking quarantine facilities and focus on tracking down the path of the virus. As the country on Monday confirmed the first MERS infection of a teenager believed to have caught the virus while receiving brain surgery at a hospital in Seoul,.... nearly two-thousand schools will remain closed on Tuesday including kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools,... and more than a dozen universities. Since the outbreak began on May 20th, 87 patients have been confirmed with MERS and six patients have died. And while more than two-and-a-half thousand people remain under quarantine,... two confirmed patients have gone on to make full recoveries. Title: Why MERS has exploded in Korea Korea now has the second-largest number of MERS patients in the world following Saudi Arabia. In the space of just three weeks since the first case, the country has confirmed nearly 90 cases. So, why is the virus spreading so fast in Korea? Our Han Da-eun takes a look. Saudi Arabia, where the MERS virus was first detected in 2012, reported 425 cases over one year. In Korea, 87 cases have been confirmed in 20 days. These numbers have many medical experts in and out of Korea wondering how one imported case, 99.5 percent identical to that of Saudi Arabia′s, could lead to so many infections in such a short time. Experts first point to the hospital environment in Korea. Most cases were transmitted in relatively narrow and crowded wards or emergency areas, where several people share a room. During early stages of the disease, MERS patients were hospitalize