Fourteen people were confirmed positive for the viral disease on Sunday alone, the fastest daily increase since the patient zero was tested positive on May 20, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The total number of contagion rose to 64. Among the 14 new cases was one death of a 75-year-old patient, who passed away Friday. The death toll increased to five, sending the fatality rate to 7.8 percent.
Ten people contracted the corona virus when they stayed at the emergency room of Samsung Medical Center in Seoul for three days from May 27 together with the 14th patient.
The total number infected at the Samsung hospital surged to 17, including a doctor of the hospital suspected of having contact with thousands of unspecified individuals under MERS contagion.
The hospital said a total of 893 people, including 218 medical staffs and 675 patients and their families, were estimated to have contacted with the 14th patient after analyzing CCTV footages during the three-day period.
All the people exposed to the 35-year-old man have been put under quarantine, and all the areas, through which the man passed, as well as the emergency room were fumigated, the hospital said.
The patient zero visited the Samsung Medical Center and touched with 478 people, including 193 medical staffs and 285 patients and their families, but no one showed any symptoms yet in the incubation period of two weeks.
The 14th infectee was estimated to have transported the virus from the Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital, where the first patient was hospitalized for three days from May 15, in the city of Pyeongtaek some 60 km south of Seoul to the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul.
The 14th infectee traveled to Seoul by bus on May 27 to be hospitalized at the Samsung Medical Center, in which the 35-year- old man infected a total of 17, Xinhua reported.
Three new cases came from the Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital. The remaining one was the tertiary contagion, in which the new infectee contracted the virus from the 16th patient at the Konyang University Hospital in Daejeon, a city at the center of South Korea.