South Korea has reported seven new cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the country, bringing the total number of such infections to 145.

The South Korean Health Ministry announced the figure on Sunday, saying three of the new cases originated in Samsung Medical Center (SMC), a prominent hospital in the southern part of the capital, Seoul, where more than 70 people have contracted the deadly virus.

A paramedic who helped transport a MERS patient to the hospital on June 7 was among those who recently contracted the disease. One of the other new cases was diagnosed in the central city of Daejeon and another in Hwaseong.

The Health Ministry reported no new fatalities, saying that 10 patients had so far recovered and been released from hospital.

MERS was first reported in South Korea on May 20, in a 68-year-old businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East. The virus has been spreading since then, sparking widespread alarm in Asia.

On Saturday, a 38-year-old South Korean man thought to have contracted MERS was hospitalized in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, after being suspected of carrying the disease there.

So far, the deadly virus has claimed the lives of 14 people in South Korea, with a World Health Organization (WHO) team currently in South Korea to assess the situation saying the outbreak is “large and complex.”

The latest MERS victim was a 68-year-old woman, who contracted the virus at a hospital in Pyeongtaek City, 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Seoul, on Saturday.

MERS is considered to be a deadlier but less infectious cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which itself killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic in East Asia.

No cure or vaccine has yet been proved functional for MERS.

YH/HSN/HJL