Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest auto giant, launched an emergency response system on Monday to better protect its employees from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which is showing signs of a wide spread in South Korea.
  

South Korea remains gripped by the potentially deadly disease that has claimed six lives so far and forced more than 2,500 people to be kept in quarantine. This is the largest outbreak of the disease outside Saudi Arabia.
  

Hyundai Motor Group, which has top two automakers, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., under its wing, held an emergency meeting earlier in the day and decided to step up preventive measures against MERS.
  

The group carried out training to help its workers stay clear of the disease, while ordering employees at its affiliates and subsidiaries to make sure that they are well aware of necessary preventive tips and guidelines.
  

In a related move, it dispatched high-ranking officials to some of its major local plants to ensure that they take necessary preventive measures as recommended.
  

The group also made facial masks, hand sanitizers and thermometers available for workers and visitors, while installing thermo-graphic cameras at major buildings, including its headquarters located in southern Seoul.
  

Employees traveling in the Middle East for business purposes were ordered to remain vigilant about their health and to get quarantined should a fever or any suspicious symptoms be detected.
  

Hyundai Motor Group said that those measures were taken as a precaution considering that it is one of the largest employers in the country with hundreds of thousands of people, including its workers and their families, whose health could be affected. (Yonhap)