Our findings confirm that the epidemiology of MERS in
South Korea is similar to that observed in the Middle
East [7] and in fact closely resembles that of the 2002–
03 outbreak of SARS [17]. The epidemic thus far has
undergone four generations of infection events (Figure
2) arising from delayed recognition of the primary
patient who sought care at multiple healthcare facilities
before finally being diagnosed and isolated. The
Korean outbreak is remarkable in that 148 of 166 transmission
events (89%), or 125 of 166 (75%) if those who
were epidemiologically linked to a cluster but not any
infector are excluded, can be attributed to just three
clusters of nosocomial superspreading events (Figure
2). Importantly, there has not been any evidence of
community transmission thus far.