This interview is the second installment in a three-part series in conversations with the former directors of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- now the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency -- as the country looks back on a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. -- Ed. A former head of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says South Korea weathered the novel coronavirus relatively unscathed in the initial stages, but that the winter serves as a reminder of

Study highlights need for research and intervention to slow decline, researchers say

‘No patient should die in wait for treatment,’ says ex-chief of Korea CDC

Misuse or abuse of steroids can result in hair loss, infertility and irregular menstruation

Celim Biotech’s brand Atomu won a patent award in the Household and Cosmetics category at the 14th Korea Excellent Patent Award held December 2020. The Korea Excellent Patent Award was hosted by Hankook Ilbo and sponsored by the Korea Institute of Patent Information and Korea Intellectual Property Strategy Agency, to promote domestic patent technology and foster products and companies, eventually securing competitiveness in the market. Around 400 companies have applied for the competit

A young, previously healthy person who caught and recovered from COVID-19 was infected again with a different strain of the pathogen, a recent study in South Korea shows. A 21-year-old woman who had been admitted to a hospital with mild COVID-19 symptoms in Seoul in March tested positive again in April, six days after being discharged on March 30, according to the study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. She was screened again after she reported a cough that kept getting wo

Perhaps one of the most frequently posed questions since the pandemic’s onset is how the new virus may compare to seasonal influenza. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Oh Myoung-don, who leads the National Medical Center’s committee for clinical management of emerging infectious diseases, said during a press conference Tuesday that complications from “COVID-19 might not be more severe than the flu.” “Certain cardiovascular and neurological complications have been

A survey in August showed that people in Denmark were happier than people from any other advanced economy about their government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. They were more satisfied than South Koreans. 　 Some 95 percent of Danes believed their government was doing a good job of handling the pandemic, while 86 percent of Koreans felt the same way about their government, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. 　 Though Denmark is also grappling with a resurgence of COVI

South Korean researchers developed a machine learning model for predicting a COVID-19 mortality risk in patients at the point of care. The research team at the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital said in Monday’s press release the model was able to estimate poor outcomes in patients with COVID-19 for over 90 percent of the cases. The model, as described in a study published last week on Scientific Reports, is based on 10,237 patients diagnosed here between Jan. 23 and April

South Korea on Thursday reported one confirmed case and two suspected cases of the Japanese encephalitis, all three of them in Gyeonggi Province.  According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, a woman in her 60s was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne disease on Wednesday. The two suspected patients are a woman in her 70s and a man in his 50s. All three started exhibiting symptoms such as fever and disorientation last month, the agency said. Among patients infected with t

　Cancer has been the No. 1 cause of death in South Korea since 1983. 　The statistics agency said 574.8 deaths were reported per 100,000 people here last year. It also said 158.2 per 100,000 had died of cancer. 　Heart disease is the second-largest cause of death here, with 60.4 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by pneumonia with 45.1 deaths per 100,000 people. 　The leading causes of death included cerebrovascular disease, suicide, diabetes and Alzheimer‘s disease. (Yonhap)

COVID-19 brings greater access to alcohol with fewer constraints

Understanding transmission by asymptomatic patients has been cited as a key factor in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in communities. Korean public health authorities have repeatedly warned of the potential of asymptomatic patients to be behind a “silent spread” of the disease. “Epidemiological investigations reveal approximately 40 percent of all confirmed cases so far are asymptomatic,” said Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s deputy chief

COVID-19 spotlights health hazards of smoking

Asymptomatic carriers may be capable of spreading the novel coronavirus to others on airplanes, a new study published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed. The study, published in the peer-reviewed Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, found that a passenger on an evacuation flight from Milan to Seoul appears to have contracted the disease after sharing the same bathroom as an asymptomatic patient. That passenger, who was seated three rows away from the said patient,