Topic: Controlling Biting-Insect Populations
Country: South Korea
Delegate Name: Serin Joice
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All South Korea position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
With 17% of all infectious diseases stemming from vector-borne disease, over 1 million deaths occur annually – an astounding number for diseases that are preventable worldwide. Although South Korea has become a developed and industrialized nation, a large majority of illnesses and diseases are caused by mosquito-borne diseases. Dating back to the Korean War (1950-1953), more than 6000 cases of malaria were diagnosed in Korea and the start of an outbreak. In 1993, a Korean soldier was diagnosed with malaria and the number of cases increased exponentially over the next 7 years. Through WHO malaria eradication programs and vast improvements to the Korean economy and quality of housing, South Korea has improved their number of malaria cases since.
As of today, the ROK is currently in the elimination phase. To combat the malaria outbreak in 1997, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDCP) launched a national malaria control program; a program that includes early case detection and treatment, chemoprophylaxis of soldiers, and vector control. This new program also provided financial support to the DPRK for malaria control efforts, and overall led to an 80 percent decrease in the number of malaria cases. Due to the shared border between DPRK and ROK, many efforts have been made to decrease malaria cases throughout both countries. ROK has provided bed nets, antimalarial drugs, laboratory drugs, and insecticides to the DPRK, yet the need for cross-border collaboration is a major concern.
There are a variety of programs that South Korea has instituted to help control and maintain disease control. South Korea’s Global Public Health Official Development Assistance Projects is an organization that provides assistance to other neighboring countries through projects that target health care systems, health education, maternal health and infectious disease. South Korea believes that similar steps should be taken in countries that are facing the same problem from vector-borne diseases. At the first sign of an outbreak, the WHO established the National Malaria Eradication Service in South Korea in 1959. This service involved indoor DDT residual spraying, chloroquine treatment for blood stage parasites, and primaquine treatment for liver-stage parasites – within two decades South Korea was declared malaria-free by WHO. This process can be implemented in other countries struggling with vector-borne diseases and is the most efficient and effective solution to this problem.
