The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said, as of 10 a.m. Tuesday, it has conducted 607 tests on suspected patients with symptoms, confirmed 16 cases, freed 462 who showed a negative response, and is testing 129 others.

KCDC also said it released 45 contacts of the first confirmed patient, a 35-year-old Chinese female. It is the first time that the KCDC terminated its active surveillance.

It confirmed a 42-year-old Korean woman as the 16th case on Tuesday. She is currently quarantined in Chonnam National University Hospital. Before the hospitalization, she visited a clinic in Gwangju on Jan. 25 after showing symptoms.

“The local healthcare centers are disinfecting the identified routes that the confirmed patients traveled, and it is safe to use the sterilized places after the measures are done,” KCDC Director Jung Eun-kyeong said. "The disclosure of the routes confirmed patients traveled is intended to inform people who were in the same place and the possibility of the exposure so that they can observe their symptoms more carefully, make timely reports, and take preventive measures.”

KCDC also said that it is following the infection-preventing instruction and spraying the surface of confirmed places with sodium hypochlorite, also known as lox, or ethanol of more than 70 percent to eradicate the virus.

The conditions of all confirmed patients are stable and are continuously being monitored and treated. People who contacted the second confirmed patient will also be free by Friday if they do not show symptoms.