Findings from Seoul National University Provides New Data on Infectious Diseases and Conditions (Infectious disease-related laws: prevention and…

Findings from Seoul National University Provides New Data on Infectious Diseases and Conditions (Infectious disease-related laws: prevention and control measures)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Week -- Investigators publish new report on Infectious Diseases and Conditions. According to news reporting out of Seoul, South Korea, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, "This study examines recently revised Korean government legislation addressing global infectious disease control for public health emergency situations, with the aim of proposing more rational, effective and realistic interpretations and applications for improvement of law. The Korea reported its first laboratory-confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus on May 20, 2015."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Seoul National University, "Since the first indexed case, Korean public health authorities enforced many public health measures that were not authorized in the law; the scope of the current law was too limited to cover MERS. Korea has three levels of government: the central government, special self-governing provinces, and si/gun/gu. Unfortunately, the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act does not designate the specific roles of each level of government, and does not state how these governmental branches should be vertically integrated in a state of emergency. When thinking about these policy questions, we should be especially concerned about introducing a new act that deals with all matters relevant to emerging infectious diseases. The aim would be to develop a structure that specifies the roles of each level of government, and facilitates the close collaboration among them, then enacting this in law for the prevention and response of infectious disease."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "To address this problem, after analyzing the national healthcare infrastructure along with the characteristics of emerging infectious diseases, we propose the revision of the relevant law(s) in terms of governance aspects, emergency medical countermeasure aspects, and the human rights aspect."

For more information on this research see: Infectious disease-related laws: prevention and control measures. Epidemiology and Health, 2017;39():e2017033 (see also Infectious Diseases and Conditions).

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting M. Park, Office of Policy Development for Healthy Society, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.4178/epih.e2017033. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Keywords for this news article include: Asia, Seoul, South Korea, Epidemiology, Legal Issues, Public Health, Infectious Diseases and Conditions.

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