Healthy authorities in the north central Vietnamese province of Thanh Hoa on Friday set up a force to fight MERS after a South Korean man died of unknown reason in the locality two days earlier.

Park Soon Hum, a 64-year-old specialist of ChoSuk Co, which runs a project in the province’s Nghi Son District, was found dead in a restroom of the company’s office in Tinh Gia District on Thursday, according to Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Park arrived in Vietnam with a group of 15 other South Korean ChoSuk employees, in January. He started developing such symptoms as fever and coughing on June 6 but opted to treatment at home instead of going to hospital.

His sudden death was discovered by ChoSuk director, according to Tien Phong.

The Thanh Hoa MERS-fighting team was seconded to the ChoSuk office and started examining the outbreak as per regulations, according to VnExpress.

However, sample taken from the deceased South Korean tested negative with MERS, or the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, according to test results released Friday.

Some ChoSuk employees who had made contact with Park, and those who arrived in Vietnam the last 14 days, are now under supervision by local health authorities.

The samples of Park have also undergone two other MERS tests whose results will be available late Saturday.

On Saturday, South Korea's health ministry reported 12 new MERS cases, bringing the total to 138, and said a 14th person has died in the outbreak, according to Reuters.

The World Health Organization said the same day that South Korea's outbreak of MERS was "large and complex" and more cases should be anticipated, but it saw no sign the disease is spreading in the community.

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