The new government plan for handling infectious diseases announced on Tuesday gives more power to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in dealing with outbreaks of contagious diseases.
The most notable change is the elevation of the post of KCDC head to a vice-ministerial appointment. In raising the status of the organization, the government gave the KCDC full and sole authority to handle infectious diseases at all levels of alert with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Public Safety and Security providing support.
The new plan for dealing with contagious diseases was prompted by the government’s failure to contain the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak which infected a total of 186 people, claiming 36 lives after the first case was confirmed on May 20.
The seemingly out-of-control spread of the little-understood disease with a high mortality rate caused public outrage at the government health authorities for their inept response to the outbreak in its early stages.
The fact that most patients were infected at hospitals raised an alarm about how inadequately prepared Korean medical facilities were for a new infectious disease. The Korean practice of visiting relatives and acquaintances at hospitals was also pointed out as a culprit in the rapid spread of MERS.
The new plan addresses the criticism about the absence of a control tower during the MERS crisis by giving more power to the KCDC. The number of full-time epidemiologists will be increased from the current two to 64, which will expedite response to an infectious disease. By 2020, the number of negative pressure rooms, essential to treating infectious respiratory diseases, will be expanded to 1,500.
Revamping the way infectious diseases are handled was no doubt an urgent matter. However, the plan could have been more thoroughly prepared to ensure that all the concerns raised during the MERS outbreak were fully addressed. In fact, with an MERS patient still in the hospital, the outbreak’s episode is not completely over.
Other than the sacking of Health Minister Moon Hyung-pyo, there has been little accounting for the government’s dismal handling of the MERS outbreak. Without a thorough review of the incident, any hastily drawn-up plan is bound to have shortcomings. The government must conduct a thorough probe into its handling of the crisis and update the newly announced plan as necessary.
