The South Korean government plans to raise the nation's disease alert level against the H1N1 influenza from the highest to the top level as the pace of the virus spread is growing faster, health authorities said Monday.
According to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, the announcement on raising the alert status is to be made Tuesday afternoon.
It said that an average of 8,857 people were confirmed as having caught the flu every day last week, twice as many as the 4,420 tallied the week before.
Measures that are to be implemented to check the spread of the virus include travel restrictions, cancellations of large-scale events and speeding up the testing process to see if a person has contracted the disease or not.
Efforts will also be made to prevent people from abusing anti-viral medicine like Tamiflu that can lead to dangerous tolerance to the drug in the future.
The ministry in charge of the country's health policies, however, said no orders will be given to close down all schools at present.
A red alert level is the highest of the four-level-tier government system that is maintained to guard against the spread of a contagious disease in the country.
The highest alert is issued if a virus is spreading rapidly among the general population that requires immediate action by authorities.
A total of 40 people have died from the flu since mid-August with 48 people currently being treated in hospital intensive care units.
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