2016∼2018년 우리나라 감염병 사건 기반 감시에서의 역학적 추세

Abstract

Epidemiological Trends of Infectious Diseases on Event-Based Surveillance, Republic of Korea, 2016-2018 Backgound: Event-Based Surveillance is a relatively new surveillance system for the purpose of better coverage on acute public health events and associated risks, especially in areas not subject to conventional governmental control. Since 2016, the government of Republic of Korea (Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ministry of Health and Welfare) has implemented EBS as part of the national infectious disease surveillance system, among other post-MERS outbreak response efforts. Reports on E-Newsletters, a Periodic Bulletin on Infectious Diseases for physicians, can be used as the resources in order to indirectly assess the result and indicator(s) of the national EBS. Objective: This study aims for analysis and assessment of EBS results, their general and epidemiological characteristics and also yearly trends from 2016 to 2018, using infectious disease events of E-Newsletter, Republic of Korea, as the data. Method: A descriptive study was conducted on 637 infectious disease events extracted from the publications of E-Newsletter, from 2016 to 2018. General characteristics such as patterns and sources of acute infectious disease events and epidemiological characteristics such as disease/pathogen, geography (continent and country) and scale of outbreaks of those events were described. Additionally, yearly trends of these characteristics mentioned above were described during the same three-year period. Result: In general characteristics, the percentage of new reports continued to be higher than that of update reports. The percentage of official sources continued to be higher than that of unofficial sources with steady increase by year. In epidemiological characteristics the percentage of foreign events continued to be higher than that of domestic events, and the steady trends of diversification in both disease/pathogen and geography (continent and country) were simultaneously observed. There was no significant outcome from disease/pathogen or scale of 117 outbreaks. Conclusion: The national EBS system of Republic of Korea has been implemented with emphasis on monitoring of foreign infectious disease events. The trends in general and epidemiological characteristics observed in this study were proven to be in accord both with the organization's priority and rapidly changing environment of modern society. Continuation of collection, verification and assessment of health intelligence including EBS and following risk communications should be recommended. Lastly, future studies should follow, with use of diverse study resources and associated topics. Keywords: Event-based Surveillance, Public health event, E-Newsletter, Emerging Infectious Disease, Re-emerging Infectious Disease, Outbreak