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Epidemiologic Investigation of a Mumps Outbreak in a Middle School in Pohang, Korea: Effect of vaccination during outbreak.
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Byung Chan Park, Hae Kwan Cheong, Hyun Sul Lim, Duck Soo Kim, Doohie Kim
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Korean J Epidemiol. 2000;22(2):148-158.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND
There was a widespread outbreak of mumps at elementary and middle schools in Pohang city in March 1999.
We have carried out an epidemiologic survey to trace the source and mode of transmission of the outbreak, as well as evaluating the effect of vaccination as a measure of controlling the outbreak.METHODS Questionnaire survey on 959 students showed that attack rate was 10.7%. There was no significant difference between genders in terms of attack rates. However, second graders outnumbered other groups as 16.9%, comparing to 8.1% among first graders and to 7.0% in the third graders.RESULTS Cases of mumps were reported in 1998, primarily in the neighboring elementary schools. The disease was also reported earlier in 1999, sporadically. In March, however, number of the cases was sharply on the rise as the middle schools opened for a new semester. Our investigation revealed that infection stemmed from more than three different sources, particularly in the classes of second graders, and then spread to all students, corresponding to the distance between students. Effect of vaccination during the outbreak was pretty good: attack rate of the group vaccinated since May 1st, considering the maximum latent period of infections (21 days), was 0.8%, comparing to 5%.
The efficiency of vaccination marked 84.8%.(95% confidence interval 79.66-89.94) Although the authors recommended the students to wear flue masks and wash their hands as often as possible to screen infections among the students, it turned out that such measures had little effect for the prevention of spread.CONCLUSIONS The number of mumps cases dropped remarkably among vaccinated the students the prevalent period of the disease. Authors concluded that is effective to control the outbreak if it is done at early stage.
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Occupational Relationship of Cancer Patients Diagnosed in Two University Hospitals.
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Geun Ryang Bae, Hyun Sul Lim, Doohie Kim
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Korean J Epidemiol. 1999;21(1):64-71.
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OBJECTIVES
This study was performed to evaluate the occupational relationship on 190 cases of cancer selected out of 622 cases of cancer registered in two university hospitals from January 1, 1996 to December 31, 1997.METHODS The selection criteria was for the patient to be more than 40 years old with lung, liver, urinary bladder, nasal cavity and skin cancer or leukemia. We reviewed the medical records to update the missing data and occupational histories. Telephone interviews were used to obtain complete occupational histories on the subjects.RESULTS The sites of cancer in the order of relative frequency was lung (51.0%), followed by liver (32.9%), urinary bladder (14.1%) and skin (2.0%) in male, liver (41.5%), followed by lung (31.7%), skin (19.5%) and urinary bladder (7.3%) in female. The occupational histories of 190 cases with suspected cancer-causing occupations were recorded 5.8% on the doctor's medical records and 33.2% on the nursing records. The response rates of the telephone interviews were 87.4%. The distribution of occupation according to the telephone interviews was farmer (47.7%), office worker (16.1%), salesman (12.8%), production worker (6.7%), simple laborer (3.4%) and unknown (13.4%) in male, housewife (63.4%), farmer (17.1%), saleswoman (9.8%) and unknown (9.8%) in female. And there were two cases of suspected occupational relationships in the lung cancer cases.CONCLUSIONS We could not discover definite cases of occupational cancer but found out two cases of suspected occupational relationships. Occupational cancer is likely to increase in the near future, so the efforts to detect occupational relationships with cancer should be continued.
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