GENEVA 

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, commonly known as the MERS virus, has killed 471 people since 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday.

As of Tuesday, there were 175 confirmed cases in South Korea, while 27 cases have resulted in deaths, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said in a press conference at the UN headquarters in Geneva.

The number of cases in South Korea has risen steadily since the country’s first ever case of MERS was reported on May 20, when a 68-year-old man came down with the virus after travelling to the Middle East.

There have been 1,334 cases of MERS infections globally, of which 471 have resulted in deaths, since September 2012 when the virus first appeared, the spokesman added.

South Korea’s government came under heavy criticism Monday, after the country’s president and prime minister both admitted that the official response to an ongoing MERS outbreak was "insufficient".

A combination of factors have been put forward by the World Health Organization for why the outbreak spread so fast in South Korea after the return of an infected man from the Middle East last month -- only Saudi Arabia has seen more infections. Healthcare settings have been pinpointed as the primary source of transmission, with the best part of 100 facilities officially linked to MERS.