An outbreak of nosocomial infections with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus occurred in South Korea in May 2015. Spike glycoprotein genes of virus strains from South Korea were closely related to those of strains from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, virus strains from South Korea showed strain-specific variations.
Keywords: MERS-CoV; Middle East respiratory syndrome; Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus; South Korea; genetic evolution; outbreak; recombination; spike glycoprotein gene; viruses.