A 62-year-old woman died from a tick-borne disease last week in the first such case in South Korea this year, health authorities said Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said the woman, who had been working at a livestock farm in Cheongyang, a town in the central province of South Chungcheong, was diagnosed with a severe fever and thrombocytopenia syndrome, or SFTS. She received treatment but died on Friday.
SFTS is a new infectious disease reported in South Korea, Japan and China. South Korea has seen a steady increase in people getting sick. The number of people infected with the disease came to 272 with 54 deaths reported for 2017.