By Chung Ah-young
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare will take full command of responses to infectious diseases.
Large hospitals nationwide will have to have negative-pressure isolation wards by 2020 to prevent cross-contamination from room to room in the case of outbreaks of epidemics, the government said Tuesday.
These are part of a package of measures to reform the nation’s disease preventions system, which was announced by Prime Minster Hwang Kyo-ahn.
The measures come as the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) revealed the vulnerability of the nation’s disease control system due to a lack of specialists and leadership.
To effectively quarantine infected patients, hospitals with more than 300 beds will be required to create negative pressure isolation units where contaminated air can be sucked out of the wards immediately.
During the MERS outbreak, many contracted the disease while staying in ordinary wards with infected patients. It was found that not many big hospitals here have such units.
Under the reforms, the KCDC will not be separated from the health ministry, which has been called for by some experts to specialize its function.
Instead, the head of the KCDC will have authority in managing medical personnel and making budget decisions.
The KCDC will also take full command of preventing and controlling diseases regardless of the crisis alert level, while other government agencies will play a supporting role.
Previously, the roles between the agencies had been different and overlapped, and it was one of the main reasons for the failure in quickly bringing MERS under control during the early stages.
In the case of an outbreak of an infectious disease, an emergency operation center will be immediately set up to prevent further inflow of the infectious virus and end the epidemic quickly.
The center will be operated to monitor the disease around the clock and receive reports of suspicious cases and collect information.
Also, the government will hire 20 specialists for disease prevention every year for the next three years and dispatch them to local governments.
MERS has killed 36 Koreans since it was first reported on May 26.
Meanwhile, police questioned Song Jae-hoon, director of the Samsung Medical Center, on Aug. 27 about whether the hospital properly responded during the early stages of the MERS outbreak.
The questioning follows Gangnam Community Health Center’s complaint against the hospital for allegedly violating the law on infectious disease prevention and control.
The local health center claimed that the hospital failed to report the case to authorities for days after it diagnosed the first MERS patient.
Police said that Song denied the accusation, claiming that the hospital followed all procedures.