Health ministry renews list of infectious diseases

Specifically, they include 15 Group A extremely dangerous infectious diseases, 47 Group B dangerous infectious diseases and 19 Group C less dangerous infectious diseases.

The list was updated with an aim to enhance the effectiveness of disease management and epidemiological surveillance, while enabling the implementation of prevention and control measures that are better aligned with the actual public health situation.

Accordingly, Group A means the diseases that are capable of spreading very rapidly and widely, have a high fatality rate, or are caused by pathogens that have not yet been clearly identified.

Group B comprises dangerous communicable diseases that are capable of spreading rapidly and may cause death. This category has undergone the most extensive revisions in the latest update.

This group includes many common communicable diseases, such as diphtheria, influenza, rabies, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, pertussis (whooping cough), measles, rubella, mumps, malaria, dengue fever, hand, foot and mouth disease, chickenpox (varicella), cholera, typhoid fever, tetanus, and viral hepatitis A, B, C, D and E, as well as numerous other diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites.

The Ministry of Health also added a number of newly emerging diseases or those that have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, including COVID-19, mpox (monkeypox), Hantavirus disease, Nocardiosis, Zika virus infection, trachoma, Legionnaires' disease, Japanese encephalitis, and acute Coxsackievirus bronchitis.

In addition, the names of several diseases have been standardized, their classifications have been clarified, and some diseases have been reclassified from Group A to Group B./.