A Disease Around the Corner.

The Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak in the Republic of Korea has taken the world by surprise for its scale because the Republic of Korea is regarded to have one of the most advanced medical and public health systems worldwide. Now, a question has arisendwhat would be the next infectious disease that could affect Korea? Considering the impact of climate change and vector existence in Korea, dengue fever (DF) is the most probable disease to affect Korea in a different aspect. DF is a mosquito-borne febrile disease caused by dengue virus (DENV) [1]. Four distinct serotypes of the virus (DENV-1eDENV-4) cause various forms of illness, from mild fever to severe dengue [2]. A World Health Organization report shows that an estimated 50 to 100 million annual dengue infections have occurred in more than 100 countries [3]. The virus is transmitted mainly by two mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus [2,3]. A. aegypti, the principal vector, lives in regions where the average winter temperature is above 10 C [3]. Because both Korea and Japan are located above this winter temperate zone, A. aegypti cannot survive. However, A. albopictus, a secondary vector, is abundant in both countries [4,5]. Thus, both countries could be at risk of dengue transmission. In Korea, no indigenous dengue cases have been confirmed up to 2015, and all reported cases were diagnosed among travelers returning from endemic or epidemic countries [6e8]. In Korea, DF has been classified as notifiable infectious disease since August 2000. DF is also a notifiable infectious disease in Japan, designated by the Infectious Disease Control Law in 1999 [9,10]. In Japan, there were DF outbreaks between 1942 and 1945; however, no domestic cases were reported prior to 2014 [9e11] when Japan experienced an unexpected small dengue outbreak in 2014 [12]. In the current issue of Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, a study aimed to identify the