A South Korean man thought to have contracted the potentially deadly MERS virus was hospitalised in the Slovak capital Bratislava on Saturday, a spokeswoman said.

"He is a 38-year-old man from South Korea who is suffering from diarrhoea, fever and lesions on his skin," Petra Stano Matasovska, from Bratislava's university hospital, told AFP, adding that the results of blood tests were expected to be released on Sunday.