By Jhoo Dong-chan
The government will hire more epidemiologic investigators to study and prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), raising the number of them from two to 89 by the end of the year.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a revision bill on the epidemiologic investigation team was approved at a Cabinet meeting in Seoul, Tuesday.
The revision follows criticism of the less-than-adequate prevention and treatment system in place during the MERS outbreak earlier this year.
At the time, there were 34 epidemiologists nationwide.But of them, only two were full-time workers belonging to the Korea Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), while the others were public health doctors who were serving with the KCDC in lieu of military service.
“Working for almost 20 hours per day during the MERS outbreak, they all suffered from fatigue,” a ministry official said. “Their fatigue delayed investigations, thus resulting in a greater spread of the disease.”
The public health doctors also lacked experience in preventing such infectious diseases and in epidemiologic investigation. Consequently, the government decided to increase the number of the investigators and hire all of them as full-time workers.
Thirty of the positions will be filled by new hires, while 25 will be filled with KCDC researchers who were in charge of quarantine and epidemiology. Each of the nation’s 17 cities and provinces will have at least two epidemiologists.
Of them, 15 will be dispatched to Incheon International Airport, the main gateway of the country through which infectious diseases are most likely to arrive. They will check for fever and symptoms of passengers who come from countries where MERS, Ebola or other infectious diseases are prevalent.
The ministry said that hiring more epidemiologists is the first step in upgrading the nation’s quarantine system, announced in September.
In the second stage, the KCDC will be reformed as a core agency to better control the spread of infectious diseases.
“We have learned a lot from the MERS outbreak this past summer,” Health and Welfare Minister Chung Chin-youb said. “The ministry is working to develop systems to cope with infections and strengthen cooperation with medical professionals.”
Interior Minister Chong Jong-sup also said, “The revision will improve the capabilities of epidemiologists and quarantine systems at the airport, thus helping prevent and analyze communicable diseases.”
Since the first MERS case was reported on May 20, Korea has confirmed 187 cases of the disease, with 38 of the infected patients dying due to the virus and other complications. The last patient died on Nov. 25 after spending 172 days in quarantine since being diagnosed with the disease on June 7, the longest stay in the world.