National level response to pandemic (H1N1) 2009

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the emergence of a novel influenza on April 24, 2009, and they declared pandemic on June 11. In Korea, the proportion of influenza-like illness and the consumption of antiviral agents peaked in early November. The government established the Central Headquarters for Influenza Control and operated the emergency response system. In the quarantine stations, we checked the body temperature and collected quarantine questionnaires from all the arrivals from infected countries. We also isolated the confirmed cases in the national isolation hospitals. However, as the community outbreaks were reported, we changed strategy from containment to mitigation. We changed the antiviral agent prescription guideline so that doctors could prescribe antiviral agents to all patients with acute febrile respiratory illness, without a laboratory diagnosis. Also the 470 designated hospitals were activated to enhance the efficacy of treatment. We vaccinated about 12 million people and manage the adverse event following the immunization management system. In 2010, we will establish additional national isolation wards and support hospitals to establish fever clinics and isolation intensive care unit (ICU) beds. We will also make a computer program for managing the national isolation hospitals and designated hospitals. We will establish isolation rooms and expand the laboratory in quarantine stations and we will construct a bio-safety level 3 laboratory in each province. In addition, we plan to construct a bio-safety level 4 laboratory at a new Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) facilities in Ossong.