Ecological characteristics and current status of infectious disease vectors in South Korea

Dong-Kyu Lee

doi:10.5124/jkma.2017.60.6.458

J Korean Med Assoc > Volume 60(6); 2017 > Article

Lee: Ecological characteristics and current status of infectious disease vectors in South Korea

Original Article

J Korean Med Assoc 2017; 60(6): 458-467.

Published online: June 17, 2017

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2017.60.6.458

Ecological characteristics and current status of infectious disease vectors in South Korea

Dong-Kyu Lee, Phd

School of Health & Environment, Kosin University, Busan, Korea

Corresponding author: Dong-Kyu Lee E-mail: leedk@kosin.ac.kr

Received April 11, 2017 Accepted April 27, 2017

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

In light of global climate change, the seasonal and geographical distribution of vector species, especially mosquitoes, chigger mites, and ticks, are of great importance for human beings residing in rural and urban environments. A total of 12 species belonging to 4 genera have been identified as vector mosquitoes in the Republic of Korea. The most common of the 56 mosquito species in this country from 2013 through 2015 was found to be a malaria vector, Anopheles sinensis s.l. (species ratio [SR] 52%); followed by a potential vector of West Nile virus, Aedes vexans nipponii (SR 38%); a Japanese encephalitis vector, Culex tritaeniorhynchus (SR 6%); a West Nile virus vector, Culex pipiens (SR 3%); and a dengue and Zika virus vector, Ae. albopictus (SR 0.3%). Of the scrub typhus vectors, Leptotrombidium scutellare is the predominant chigger mite in Gyongnam province and Jeju island, whereas L. pallidum is the predominant species in other areas of Korea. Ticks were found to be prevalent in most environmental conditions, and high levels of their activity were consistently observed from May to September. Haemaphysalis species of ticks were mostly collected in grasslands, whereas Ixodes species were frequently found in coniferous forests. Haemaphysalis longicornis, known as the main vector of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, was the predominant species and was widely distributed throughout the country.

Key words: Vector; Communicable diseases; Culicidae; Trombiculidae; Ticks

Table 1.

Reported cases of national infectious diseases from vectors in the Republic of Korea from 2007 through 2016 [2-4]

Classification of disease	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Malaria	2,227	1,052	1,345	1,772	826	542	445	638	699	673
Japanese encephalitis	7	6	6	26	3	20	14	26	40	28
Dengue fever	97	51	59	125	72	149	252	165	255	314
Chikungunya fever	-	-	-	-	0	0	2	1	2	10
West Nile fever	-	-	-	-	0	1	0	0	0	0
Zika virus infection	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	16
Scrub typhus	6,022	6,057	4,995	5,671	5,151	8,604	10,365	8,130	9,513	11,107
Lyme borreliosis	-	-	-	-	2	3	11	13	9	27
SFTS	-	-	-	-	-	-	36	55	79	165
Q fever	12	19	14	13	8	10	11	8	27	85

SFTS, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Table 2.

Species and number of nocturnal mosquitoes collected with black light traps at 28 to 40 sites in 10 locations of the Republic of Korea from April through October (mean number/trap/night) [6-9]

Species	No. of mosquitoes (%)
Species	2011	2013	2014	2015
Anopheles spp.	344.4 (60.4)	739.2 (49.9)	1,364.1 (53.6)	557.2 (52.8)
Aedes vexans	128.5 (22.5)	537.3 (36.3)	1,008.5 (39.6)	389.2 (36.9)
Culex tritaeniorhynchus	66.1 (11.6)	131.4 (8.9)	92.9 (3.7)	64.8 (6.1)
Cx. pipiens	22.0 (3.9)	51.4 (3.5)	66.7 (2.6)	34.4 (3.3)
Armigeres subalbatus	7.9 (1.4)	14.2 (1.0)	9.5 (0.4)	7.1 (0.7)
Ochlerotatus dorsalis	<0.1 (<0.1)	6.0 (0.4)	3.2 (0.1)	0.6 (0.1)
Cx. orientalis	1.1 (0.2)	1.0 (0.1)	1.3 (0.1)	0.9 (0.1)
Cx. bitaeniorhynchus	0.3 (0.1)	0.6 (<0.1)	0.5 (<0.1)	0.4 (<0.1)
Total	570.3 (100.0)	1,481.1 (100.0)	2,546.7 (100.0)	1,054.6 (100.0)

Table 3.

Species and number of diurnal mosquitoes collected at two sites with BioGents Sentinel traps from April through October in Busan (mean number/trap/night) [22,29]

Species	No. of mosquitoes (%)
Species	2013	2014	2015	2016
Aedes albopictus	2.1 (48.8)	1.6 (25.4)	6.6 (47.5)	6.9 (50.4)
Ochlerotatus togoi	1.9 (44.2)	4.4 (69.8)	5.9 (42.5)	5.3 (38.7)
Oc. koreicus	0.3 (7.0)	0.3 (4.8)	1.4 (10.1)	1.5 (11.0)
Total	4.3 (100.0)	6.3 (100.0)	13.9 (100.0)	13.7 (100.0)

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