No abstract available.
Malaria* ; Republic of Korea*

Malaria is one of the most important tropical diseases but also occurring in many temperate regions. After more than 10 years' absence, vivax malaria reemerged in Korea in 1993. The annual occurrence has been increased rapidly, reaching 4,142 cases in 2000. It started to decrease and fell to 826 cases in 2004. Recently, however, the incidence tends to increase. Anopheles sinensis is the major vector of malaria in Korea, and its vectorial capacity is low. This endemic occurred in the northern part of South Korea near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The patients suffered from the typical illness of vivax malaria. It is noteworthy that thrombocytopenia occurred in more than 70% of the patients. It is believed that the malaria is properly diagnosed and treated over the nation along the accumulation of experience. To control the disease, more elaborated programs should be conducted in collaboration with North Korea.
Anopheles ; Cooperative Behavior ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea ; Epidemiology ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea* ; Malaria* ; Malaria, Vivax ; Thrombocytopenia

No abstract available.
Animals ; Babesiosis* ; Clindamycin ; Humans ; Male* ; Quinine

No abstract available.
Animals ; Babesiosis* ; Clindamycin ; Humans ; Male* ; Quinine

Parasitic diseases are widely distributed throughout the world. Recently, travel abroad and migration from abroad are increasing in Korea. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately control imported parasitic disease. The drugs for the treatment of the parasitic diseases that can be imported from abroad are reserved by the government. To guide proper treatment of parasitic diseases, recommended chemotherapy focused on these reserved drugs has been introduced. The diseases reviewed in this article include malaria, babesiosis, toxoplasmosis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, African sleeping sickness, filariasis, angiostrongyliasis, and fascioliasis. Because most of the parasitic diseases produce severe illness or fatal results, rapid and accurate diagnosis is important and following fully the recommended therapy is needed. The recommended drug therapy changes from time to time due to various factors, so always recognizing and applying the latest therapy and is very important.
Animals ; Babesiosis ; Chagas Disease ; Fascioliasis ; Filariasis ; Korea ; Leishmaniasis ; Malaria ; Parasitic Diseases ; Strongylida Infections ; Toxoplasmosis ; Trypanosomiasis, African

Vivax malaria has been endemic in Korea since the 15th century. In the 1960s a Malaria Eradication Project was introduced by the Korean government in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1979, WHO declared Korea a malaria-free area. Thereafter, any cases of malaria in Korea were imported cases. In 1993 a case of malaria, that was not imported, was identified. From then, malaria cases have increased exponentially and have tended to expand toward souther areas of Korea. We experienced three cases showing atypical clinical course of vivax malaria. In the first case, the patient had a spike of fever after the completion of standard chloroquine-primaquine therapy. He revealed the recrudescence of vivax malaria. The second one was asymptomatic parasitemia. The patient had no complaint for the prolonged period despite low level of parasitemia. The third patient was natural healing or vivax malaria with a relative long incubation period. Therefore we report these atypical cases with review.
Fever ; Humans ; Korea ; Malaria ; Malaria, Vivax* ; Parasitemia ; Plasmodium vivax ; Recurrence ; World Health Organization

Despite on-going efforts to control malaria, the rate of malaria has not decreased throughout the world. It was believed that endemic malaria had been eradicated in Korea since the end of the 1970s, however it reemerged from 1993 and has been increasing ever since. Besides endemic malaria, imported malaria is also increasing in Korea as the number of overseas travellers and foreign workers increases. We discovered malaria in a two-year-old child who visited Sierra Leone with his missionary father. The patient contracted malaria despite chemo-prophylaxis with chloroquine and was diagnosed as falciparum malaria by blood smear examination and IFAT. He successfully recovered after administraion of quinine and clindamycin without complication. However, the malaria did not respond quickly to chloroqine and Fansidar but a drug resistence test was not performed.
Child* ; Chloroquine ; Clindamycin ; Fathers ; Humans ; Korea ; Malaria* ; Missions and Missionaries ; Quinine ; Sierra Leone

Plasmodium vivax, a protozoan malaria parasite of humans, represents a major public health concern in the Republic of Korea (= South Korea). However, little is known about the genetic properties and population structures of the P. vivax isolates circulating in South Korea. This article reviews known polymorphic genetic markers in South Korean isolates of P. vivax and briefly summarizes the current issues surrounding the gene and population structures of this parasite. The critical genetic characteristics of major antigens of the parasite, such as circumsporozoite protein (CSP), merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP-1) and MSP-3, Duffy binding protein (DBP), apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA-1), and GAM-1, are also discussed.
Amino Acid Sequence ; Animals ; Antigens, Protozoan/chemistry/*genetics ; Base Sequence ; Humans ; Malaria, Vivax/*parasitology ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Plasmodium vivax/chemistry/*genetics/isolation & purification ; *Polymorphism, Genetic ; Protozoan Proteins/chemistry/*genetics ; Republic of Korea ; Sequence Alignment

Molecular karyotyping was applied to Pneumocystis carinii(Pc) from two strains of experimental rats, Sprague Dawley(SD) and Fisher(F), in Korea. Field inversion gel electrophoresis and contour clamped homogeneous electric field electrophoresis resolved 15 chromosomal bands from the Pc. The size of the bands was estimated 270kb to 684kb from SD rats, and 273kb to 713 kb from F rats. The bands of 283 kb from SD rats and of 273 kb from F rats stained more brightly suggesting duplicated bands. Total number of chromosomes was at least 16, and total genomic size was estimated 7 x 10(6) bp. All of the bands from F rats hybridized to the probe of repeated DNA sequences of Pc and the band of 448 kb size was proved to contain rDNA sequences, but Pc. chromosome bands from SD rats showed no reactions to the probes. The 2 different karyotypes of P. carinii from 2 strains of rats were maintained consistently for 2 years.
Electrophoresis- ; ; Korea- ; ; Nucleic-Acid-Hybridization ; Pneumocystis-carinii-isolation-and-purification ; Rats- ; *Karyotyping- ; ; *Pneumocystis-carinii-genetics ; *Rats,-Inbred-F344-microbiology ; *Rats,-Sprague-Dawley-microbiology

BACKGROUND: In the Republic of Korea, Plasmodium vivax malaria, which had disappeared since 1984, re-emerged in 1993. Currently, malaria is becoming a serious public health problem in the Republic of Korea. The diagnosis of malaria has relied on microscopic examination such as thin and thick blood smears. However, even for expert microscopists, this test is a laborious and time-consuming procedure. Therefore, the development of a reliable, easy, and convenient diagnostic test is crucial. Recently, the LG malaria anti-PvTM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit for the detection of a specific antibody against the merozoite surface protein (MSP) of P. vivax was developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic kit for P. vivax malaria in the Republic of Korea. METHODS: To determine the usefulness of the LG malaria anti-PvTM as a diagnostic kit for vivax malaria, a total of 59 serum samples from patients with P. vivax malaria were tested. The patients were diagnosed microscopically and the parasitemia index of their blood was calculated. Sera from 203 uninfected healthy blood donors, which were microscopically negative for Plasmodium vivax, were used as negative controls. RESULTS: The sensitivity and specificity of the LG malaria anti-PvTM were 98.31% (58/59) and 98.03% (199/203), respectively. The false-positive and false-negative rates were 1.97% (4/203) and 1.69% (1/59), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic kit, LG malaria anti-PvTM, might be a useful tool for diagnosis and screening of P. vivax malaria in Korea.
Blood Donors ; Diagnosis* ; Diagnostic Tests, Routine ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Humans ; Korea ; Malaria* ; Malaria, Vivax* ; Mass Screening ; Merozoites ; Parasitemia ; Plasmodium vivax* ; Plasmodium* ; Public Health ; Republic of Korea* ; Sensitivity and Specificity