As the Middle East respiratory syndrome seemed to spiral out of control, the government finally abandoned its policy of not disclosing hospitals involved in MERS treatment and announced 24 hospitals where MERS patients were treated or are being treated.

Knowing whether the hospitals they visited had treated MERS patients allows the public to prevent the further spread of the virus in the community. However, the health authorities were lambasted following the announcement for incorrectly identifying a few of the hospitals ― getting the locations and names mixed up.

Then came the revelation that an elderly patient who came to Konkuk University Hospital with a hip fracture on Saturday was diagnosed with MERS later that day after developing a high fever. Although she had responded “No” to questions concerning MERS when she arrived at the hospital, the medical staff, suspicious of her sudden spike in fever, confirmed that she had been at the Samsung Medical Center emergency room. The woman, in her 70s, also visited the emergency room at another university hospital on May 5, raising concerns that she could have spread the virus to those two hospitals before being diagnosed.

Meanwhile, Samsung Medical Center has become the source of a second wave of MERS. The Pyeongtaek St. Mary’s Hospital, from which the first patient spread it to 36 others, was the site of the first wave of MERS, which the Health Ministry on Monday said has come to an end.

The government says that the MERS infections have been limited to hospitals. It has also ruled out airborne transmission. However, the World Health Organization has said that MERS is a relatively new disease and that there are significant information gaps. Indeed, it seems prudent for the government to not rule out any possibilities. The health authorities were insistent in the initial stage of the MERS outbreak that the virus was not highly contagious and there would be no tertiary infections, but that has been proven false.

A team of WHO experts, headed by Assistant Director-General for Health, Security and Environment Keiji Fukuda, will carry out a joint mission with the government starting today. One of the glaring problems in containing the spread of MERS is the lack of information-sharing among the various institutions involved. In a society where patients often visit several hospitals for the same condition, it was imperative that hospitals have knowledge of where the patients had previously been, but there was no way of knowing this unless the patients declared it themselves.

The government could also have contained the spread better if it had disclosed the names of the MERS-related hospitals sooner. The conflict between local and central government over the extent of the information released also takes away from the efforts to fight MERS.

The MERS outbreak has exposed the weaknesses and failures of Korean hospitals as well as peculiarities of Korean culture that render the population vulnerable to infections at hospitals. The health authorities’ incompetence has also been laid bare.

The health authorities should fully cooperate with the WHO team that is here to collect information and review the situation. The authorities should fully share with the WHO team to gain complete understanding of what is happening in Korea. The country should make this a learning opportunity so that we are better prepared for whatever may come next.