The government has unveiled a new plan for the national quarantine system to better combat contagious diseases in the wake of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak. The new measures, announced by Health and Welfare Minister Chung Chin-youb Tuesday, focus on addressing the much-touted absence of a control tower in the event of epidemics and resolving a lack of quarantine personnel and facilities.
First of all, a vice minister-level official will head the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) so that he or she can take full command of quarantine responses at all levels of crisis situations. Now, the public safety and health agency is led by a deputy minister-level official.
A 24-hour emergency operations center will be established under the direct control of the KCDC chief to keep track of all suspected contagious cases. All general hospitals with 300 or more beds must have negative pressure rooms, which are effective in controlling contagious respiratory ailments, under the government’s plan to have such rooms to treat 1,500 patients by 2020.
The health ministry will increase the number of full-time epidemiologists from the current two to 64 to enhance our initial response capabilities to public health emergencies. In addition, measures have been presented to improve our outdated nursing care system the operational method of emergency rooms at general hospitals and regulate visiting hours for patients.
Considering that MERS, which killed 36 people since its first outbreak on May 20, has revealed the magnitude of our vulnerable public health system, these measures should have been carried out much earlier. But even now, they seem insufficient to prevent a recurrence of the spread of contagious diseases such as MERS, which is estimated to have caused Korea to suffer economic losses of more than 10 trillion won.
Most problematic is that there will be little change in the nation’s medical system primarily led by private hospitals, which critics cite as one of the reasons for the national chaos that lasted for more than two months following the MERS outbreak.
Also worrisome is whether the KCDC head can fulfill his or her duties as an empowered control tower in containing future infectious diseases. This concern is not without reason, given that the health agency will remain under the wing of the health ministry. To dispel these worries, the government needs to endow the KCDC chief with powerful and independent commanding rights.
To prevent a recurrence of similar shameful incidents, it will be necessary for health ministry officials to have time of soul-searching regarding why they failed to bring MERS under control in the early stages. It’s better to close the barn door even after the horse is stolen.