More than 200 schools have canceled classes to prevent the spread of a deadly virus that has killed two South Koreans, the Ministry of Education said Wednesday, according to Yonhap News Agency.

As of 11 am, students and teachers have been told not to show up at 230 schools, about 1 percent of some 20,000 schools nationwide, a ministry spokesman said.

The vast majority of the total, or 184 schools, are in Gyeonggi Province, where the first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in South Korea was reported.

The rest are in North and South Chungcheong Provinces, close to Gyeonggi.

Earlier Wednesday, Korean Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea called for a thorough effort to prevent the disease from spreading to schools, which he said requires extra vigilance.

MERS is a viral respiratory illness that is fairly new to humans with only some 1,100 confirmed cases reported throughout the world. Currently, there is no vaccine or treatment for the disease.

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