South Korea begins mosquito surveillance
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) will begin the 2025 domestic infectious disease vector mosquito surveillance project in 13 quarantine areas (airports and ports) and four cities and provinces in the southern region (Jeju, Busan, Gyeongnam, and Jeonnam) from the end of March.
The major infectious diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are known to include Japanese encephalitis, malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, Zika virus infection, and West Nile fever, and mosquitoes that can transmit these infectious diseases are found throughout the country.
Japanese encephalitis (21 locally transmitted cases in 2024) and malaria (659 locally transmitted cases in 2024) are among the mosquito-borne infectious diseases that occur in South Korea, so will be conducting intensive surveillance for these diseases. In addition, we are conducting a nationwide vector surveillance project every year to prepare for the influx of overseas infectious diseases such as dengue fever.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, in cooperation with the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, local governments (National Institute of Environmental Research, public health centers), and the private sector (Climate Change Hub Center) to monitor vector mosquitoes, will conduct surveillance at 169 locations nationwide from March to October.
Director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Young-mi Ji said, “As our country becomes more subtropical due to climate change, the mosquito outbreak period is gradually getting earlier and the number of outbreaks is also increasing.”
“The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency is conducting active mosquito vector surveillance in cooperation with relevant organizations and providing the results through its website, so local governments should conduct concentrated control of larvae outbreak areas based on mosquito surveillance information and make efforts to minimize the occurrence of mosquito vector infectious diseases through preventive publicity and education for local residents,” he stated.