Epidemiological Characteristics of Imported Shigellosis in Korea, 2010–2011

Shigellosis is a global disease as food poisoning by infection of Shigella spp (S. dysenteriae, S. flexneri, S. boydii and S. sonnei). In Korea, approximately 500 cases of shigellosis have reported every year since 2004, and imported shigellosis is increasing gradually from 2006 in particular. According to increase of numbers of overseas travelers, the numbers of patients diseased with imported shigellosis is also increasing. We need continuous surveillance studies network (SSN) for control of imported shigellosis. We studied epidemiological characteristic of imported shigellosis by using database of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) from 2010 to 2011. The imported shigellosis is analyzed on correlation with variable factors such as sex, age, symptom, visited country as well as Shigella spp in the database. Total 399 patients diseased with shigellosis have been reported between 2010 and 2011, The 212 patients (53.1%) among them were disease with imported shigellosis and the 205 patients (96.7%) were diagnosed as definite shigellosis. Shigella sonnei (65.6%) and Shigella flexneri (20.3%) were isolated in order. Clinical symptoms of the shigellosis were diarrhea (96.5%), abdominal pain (54.7%), fever (52.8%), chill (31.6%), and weakness (21.7% etc) in order. Duration of diarrhea was 1 to 5 days, the number of diarrhea was mostly more than 10 times, and type of stool was almost yellow stool. Almost shigellosis was occurred in the travelers visited to Asia (98.1%). Particularly, the occurrence rate of shigellosis was highest in traveler visited to Southeast Asia which is India (21.7%), Cambodia (19.8%), Philippines (17.9%), and Vietnam (9.0%) in order. According to increase of traveler to Southeast Asia, imported Shigellosis also increased. We need to strengthen the public health and hygiene, which is infection prevention rules, eating properly-cook food, washing hands, drinking boiled water, for traveler to Asia. The quarantine and surveillance system to control imported shigellosis is need continually in Korea.