South Korea sees no new MERS cases for 23rd day

South Korea reported no additional cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) for more than three weeks on Tuesday, prompting the government to announce an effective end of the outbreak.

The number of people diagnosed with the disease remained fixed at 186 for the 23rd straight day, and the death toll also stayed flat at 36 with no fatalities reported over the past 17 days, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Out of the 186 people diagnosed, 138 have been discharged from hospitals following complete recoveries.

Twelve of them still remain hospitalized, and 11 of them have tested negative for the disease, leaving only one MERS patient in the country.

But the government declared the de facto end of the outbreak, one day after the country removed the last suspected patient from isolation.

"After weighing various circumstances, the medical personnel and the government judge that the people can now be free from worry," Prime Minster Hwang Kyo-ahn said in a Cabinet meeting in Seoul.

Since the country reported its first MERS case on May 20, some 16,700 people have been subject to isolation as suspected cases. They were released after showing no symptoms of the disease for more than the known maximum incubation period of 14 days for MERS.

MERS is a viral respiratory disease that is still new to humans. It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. There currently is no vaccine or treatment for the disease.

The disease had carried a fatality rate of over 40 percent until the outbreak here. In South Korea, the fatality rate stands at 19.4 percent.