Hospitals could potentially become infectious hotspots if rigorous infection control processes are not in place, according to an article on the Health Affairs website.
For this reason, South Korea has incorporated hospital infection control as a core component of its national COVID-19 containment strategy, which has been relatively successful in controlling the pandemic within its borders.
During the 2015 outbreaks of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in several hospitals that emerged from one infected patient, South Korea took steps to proactively strengthen hospital infection control capacity.
Strict standards are applied to hospitals with more than 300 beds to regularly conduct drills and maintain adequate numbers of negative-pressure isolation beds and infection control experts.
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