Two major hospitals in South Korea's capital suspended services to patients on Wednesday in a bid to stop the spread of Middle East respiratory syndrome after four new cases of the deadly virus were reported.

The new MERS cases included two who were in the same hospital ward as other patients with the virus, South Korea's Health Ministry said.

The others were a nurse at Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul - one of the epicenters of the outbreak - and a relative of a patient who was hospitalized for an unspecified disease in a hospital in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, in early June.