(ECNS) – Those who are continuing with travel plans are seeking Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) prevention measures, a wide variety of which are available online, but experts warn that many of them are unreliable.
According to Song Tie, deputy director of the Guangdong provincial center for disease control and prevention, there are no effective drugs to prevent MERS, and anyone claiming to be able to prevent the illness may do more harm than good.
Zhong Haojie, another official with the center, says MERS is not new, and that the virus has rarely been detected in communities. Even in South Korea, transmission of the virus has mainly occurred in hospitals, the report added.
Zhong advised tourists to South Korea to avoid visiting hospitals where an outbreak of MERS has been reported. They should also adopt personal hygiene measures, especially washing hands well and keeping away from people who are coughing badly or vomiting.
Some 100,000 Chinese people have canceled trips to South Korea this month amid concerns about MERS, the Guangzhou Daily reported on Tuesday.
Travel agencies and other tourism institutions in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province, have confirmed that about 10 to 20 percent of tourists have canceled plans to travel to South Korea in June, the paper said.
