The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus has already killed five people in South Korea. On Sunday, the country announced that it is strengthening measures to stop the disease from spreading further.

Since the first person was diagnosed last month, sixty four people have already been confirmed infected by MERS. The current South Korea outbreak has fast become the largest outside of the Middle East.

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Last week, more than 1,200 schools have announced that they were closing, fearing spread of the virus, announced the Ministry of Education.

Apart from schools closing, more than 2,000 citizens were placed in isolation either at home or in medical facilities, according to health officials.

Choi Kyung-hwan, South Korea's acting prime minister, said Sunday that the government will also provide additional monitoring to the many undiagnosed patients quarantined at home as officials say they may have been infected by the virus. Additional monitoring reportedly include use of cellphone signals to track the whereabouts of the quarantined individuals.

On a lighter note, Choi added that the virus would not be spreading any further in the country.

"So far, all the MERS cases have been hospital-associated, and there has been no case of an infection in other social settings," Choi said in a news conference. "We think we have a chance at putting the outbreak under total control."

MERS has neither cure nor vaccine. According to health experts, it can spread via close contact with infected people.

In a report by the U.N. health agency, there is yet no evidence of "sustained transmission in the community" in South Korea, reported the Associated Press.

On Sunday, the South Korean government has also released the names of the 24 hospitals and clinics infected by the virus.

The release of the hospitals' names came two weeks after the outbreak, and after the near panic the government created after refusing to release their names.

Included in the list is where the nation's first case as well as 36 other cases were confirmed - Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital in Gyeonggi Province. Also in the list is Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, where 17 other patients remain.

There are 11 hospitals in Gyeonggi Province highlighted in the list. There are also seven in Seoul, three in South Chungcheong Province, two in Daejeon and one in North Jeolla Province, reported The Korea Times.

Disclosure of the names will reportedly allow people showing MERS-like symptoms and who have been in the facilities to report themselves.

In another Sunday conference, Taiwan's disease containment institutions said that they will not be placing independent fever detection centers in screening MERS. However, the country said that vigilance is a must for first-response medical staff, according to Focus Taiwan News Channel.

Since its discovery in Saudi Arabia in 2012, the United Arab Emirates has had the second largest total of MERS-infected patients so far with 76. Korea is fast becoming the second worst MERS hit country in the world, with Saudi Arabia being first.

Tags5th person dies MERS south korea, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS, SARS, Taiwan, MERS south korea