President Park Geun-hye toured the task force charged with containing the spread of the deadly MERS virus Wednesday to encourage officials there.
She visited the headquarters of the Health and Welfare Ministry’s task force in Sejong City in the central part of the country.
No details of the meeting were immediately available.
The meeting came hours after South Korea reported that another patient infected with the virus had died.
The latest fatality raised the country’s death toll to 20 since May 20, when the country’s first infection of the virus was confirmed.
South Korea also reported eight new cases of the viral respiratory illness that put the total number of people diagnosed with the disease at 162 — about half of them infected at Samsung Medical Center, one of top hospitals in South Korea.
The meeting came a day after Park visited a primary school and middle school in Seoul, both of which have reopened following a temporary shutdown because of the deadly virus.
Park has carried out a series of public activities to try to calm the public scare sparked by the MERS virus. She has appealed to people to return to their normal daily lives.
Currently, 124 MERS patients remain in hospital care while 18 of them are in serious condition, according to the ministry.
Some 6,500 others were in isolation as of Wednesday for possible infection after coming into close contact with MERS patients. (Yonhap)
