Domestic and international trend of vector-borne disease

ABSTRACT

The incidence of vector-borne diseases has increased with climate change and developments of transportation. Malaria was eliminated in the early 1980s in Korea, but one domestic case was reported in 1993. The number of patients increased to 4,142 in 2002, and less than 700 cases of malaria are reported annually nowadays. Additionally, approximately 70 to 80 imported malaria cases were reported annually, and most of them are Plasmodium falciparum infections from Africa. Annually, 20 to 40 cases of Japanese encephalitis are reported, and the incidence is high in individuals between the ages of 40 and 59. Moreover, 313 cases of dengue fever were imported in 2016, and most of them were from Southeast Asia. In 2016, 11,000 cases of scrub typhus were reported, and most of the patients were older than 50. The number of reported cases of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome has been increasing since 2013, mostly in patients older than 60. It is important to avoid vectors for the prevention, and for the doctors to diagnose the apatients as soon as possible.