• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.432-445
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• 2018

For health care professionals(HCPs) who have relatively higher possibility of exposing tuberculosis(Tb), it is important for them to equip with proper levels of knowledge and prevention activities. In terms of establishment of Tb education model for junior HCPs, therefore, literature review was done alongside 129 junior HCPs and 14 HCPs were asked to answer questionnaires and telephone survey. The results are follows.; Firstly, six educational themes such as epidermiology of Tb, Tb transmission and patho-physiology, test and diagnosis, latent Tb, Tb treatment, and Tb prevention were identified, based on the literature review. Secondly, the junior HCPs showed lower levels of knowledge regarding epidermiology, transmission and patho-physiology and latent Tb, compared to the other themes. When education courses are planned, longer period of time should be given to the lower level of knowledge areas. Thirdly, the HCPs emphasized that definition and type of Tb should be well integrated into the education in particular epidermiology education. They also responded that hospital infection and infection cycle of Tb need to be addressed during educational session about transmission and patho-physiology. in addition, they said that specific and detailed contents about diagnosis and group examination should be carefully delivered during the education, along with diagnosis, test and application of personal protective devices during education of latent Tb. They also answered that patient education and adverse effect of Tb medication should be taught during Tb treatment session, as well as self activities of health promotion for junior HCPs and systematic TB education as key way of Tb prevention. As the findings were from limited numbers of respondents and contained the sampling bias, the result has to be carefully interpretated prior to generalization. Therefore, further survey with larger study population is required in terms of development of Tb education model.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.520-531
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to test the validity and reliability of the Korean version of the Tuberculosis Interview Instrument (K-TII). The instrument was first translated into Korean, back-translated to English, and reviewed. After the translation process, the instrument was revised from 52 items to 37 items by researchers and an expert according to the systematic review. In addition, these items were reduced to 32 items after the content validity test was done by 9 experts. As a result of pilot study conducted in 20 early childhood teachers, 32 items were selected for the preliminary instrument. Data collected from 289 early childhood teachers were used to test the validity and reliability of the preliminary instrument. The result of factor analysis showed that the instrument categorized into 7 factors explaining 71% of the total variance and 27 items were retained for the final instrument. The result of Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficient was .88. In conclusion, the K-TII may be a suitable instrument for assessing tuberculosis prevention behaviors in early childhood teachers in Korea.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.218-227
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• 2020

Background: The national Public-Private Mix (PPM) tuberculosis (TB) control project provides for the comprehensive management of TB patients at private hospitals in South Korea. Surveillance and monitoring of TB under the PPM project are essential toward achieving TB elimination goals. Methods: TB is a nationally notifiable disease in South Korea and is monitored using the surveillance system. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quarterly generates monitoring indicators for TB management, used to evaluate activities of the PPM hospitals by the central steering committee of the national PPM TB control project. Based on the notification date, TB patients at PPM hospitals were enrolled in each quarter, forming a cohort, and followed up for at least 12 months to identify treatment outcomes. This report analyzed the dataset of cohorts the first quarter of 2016 through the fourth quarter of 2017. Results: The coverage of sputum, smear, and culture tests among the pulmonary TB cases were 92.8% and 91.5%, respectively. The percentage of positive sputum smear and culture test results were 30.7% and 61.5%, respectively. The coverage of drug susceptibility tests among the culture-confirmed cases was 92.8%. The treatment success rate among the smear-positive drug-susceptible cases was 83.2%. The coverage of latent TB infection treatment among the childhood TB contacts was significantly higher than that among the adult contacts (85.6% vs. 56.0%, p=0.001). Conclusion: This is the first official report to analyze monitoring indicators, describing the current status of the national PPM TB control project. To sustain its effect, strengthening the monitoring and evaluation systems is essential.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.600-605
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• 2005

Background : Primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is defined as Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates that are resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin in never-been-treated tuberculosis patients, and this malady is caused by the transmission of a resistant strain from one patient, who is infected with a resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain, to another patient. The prevalence of primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could be a good indicator of the performance of tuberculosis control programs in recent years. We conducted a case-control study to identify the risk factors for primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Methods : From January 1, 2001 to, June 30, 2003, by conducting prospective laboratory-based surveillance, we identified 29 hospitalized patients with P-MDRTB and these patients constituted a case group in this study. The controls were represented by all the patients with culture-confirmed drug susceptible tuberculosis who were admitted to National Masan Hospital during the same study period. The odds ratios for the patients with primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, as compared with those of the patients with drug susceptible tuberculosis, were calculated for each categorical variable with 95% confidence intervals. Results : Multivariate logistic regression showed that the presence of diabetes mellitus (odds ratio 2.68; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-6.86) was independently associated with having primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Conclusion : This study has shown that diabetes mellitus might be one of the risk factors for primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.264-268
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• 2021

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major infectious disease that threatens the life and health of people globally. Here, we performed a metabolomic analysis of serum samples from patients with intractable TB to identify biomarkers that might shorten the TB treatment period. Serum samples collected at the commencement of patients' treatment and healthy controls were analyzed using the capillary electrophoresis and time-of-flight mass spectrometry metabolome analysis method. The analysis identified the metabolites cystine, kynurenine, glyceric acid, and cystathionine, which might be useful markers for monitoring the TB treatment course. Furthermore, our research may provide experimental data to develop potential biomarkers in the TB treatment course.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.55-84
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• 2015

The tuberculosis is the infectious disease. Generally, the active tuberculosis patient can infect the 10 persons for one year within the daily activities like casual conversation and singing together. The infectivity of tuberculosis can continue for a life time, and infected persons can remain at risk for developing active tuberculosis. To control this contagious disease, along with the active tuberculosis patients, non-infectious but non-compliant patients who can be infectious if their immune systems become impaired have to be managed. To control the non-complaint patients, medical treatment order should be combined with the public order. Because tuberculosis is the risk of community health, the human rights like liberty and freedom of movement can be restricted for public welfare under the article 37(2) of constitution. Even when such restriction is imposed, no essential aspect of the freedom or right shall be violated. The degree of restriction on the rights of citizens is different what methods are chosen to non-complaint patients. For example, under the directly observed therapy program, the patients and medical staffs make an appointment and meet to confirm the drug intakes according to the schedule, which is the medical treatment combined with the mildest public order. If the patients break the appointments or have the history of disobedient, the involuntary detention can obtain the legitimate cause. The Tuberculosis Prevention Act has the two step programs on this involuntary detention, The admission order (Article 15) is issued when the patients are infectious. The quarantine order (Artle 15-2) is issued when the patients are infectious and non-complaint. The legal criteria for involuntary detention are discussed and published through the international conventions and covenants. For example, World Health Organization had made guidance on human rights and involuntary detention for tuberculosis control. The restrictions should be carried out in accordance with the our law and in the legitimate objective of public interest. And the restriction should be based on scientific evidence and not imposed in an unreasonable or discriminatory manner. We define and adopt these international criteria under our constitution and legal system. Least restrictive alternative principle, proportionality principle and the individual evaluation methods are explained through the reviews of United States court decisions. Habeas Corpus Act is reviewed and adopted as the procedural due process to protect the patient rights as a citizen. Along with that, what conditions and facilities which are needed to performed quarantine order are discussed.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.513-525
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of local factors affecting number of tuberculosis death by urban and rural areas. Method: The Partial Least Square(PLS) Regression analysis was used to solve the problem of multicollinearity and number of samples. Result: As a result of analysis, The number of tuberculosis deaths in urban and rural areas is about three times as large. As a result of analysis about Regional Characteristics Factor, In general, children, elderly people, and economically vulnerable populations are more likely to be exposed to tuberculosis. In differential results, it shows that environmental factors such as ultrafine dust and sulfur dioxide have a significant impact on the number of tuberculosis deaths in urban areas and social factors such as depression experience rate in rural areas. Conclusion: The Tuberculosis prevention and management policies that reflect the characteristics of urban and rural areas are needed in the future.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.595-601
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• 1993

Background: Today, tuberculosis continues as an important cause of death in Korea despite the effective treatment and prevention. So we have studied charicteristic distribution of death by pulmonary tuberculosis through epidemiologic survey. Subjects and Method: The mortality data were obtained from 684 pulmonary tuberculosis cases who died in a tuberculosis-centered hospital in Seoul during the period of 5 years from 1986 to 1990. In order to estimate the distribution of death by tuberculosis, t-test and $x^2$-text were performed on the data. Results: 1) 19.9% of patients died among the total 3,441 hospitalized pulmonary tuberculosis cases during 5 years. 2) In distribution of sex and age, male death occupies 81% of total death. Significantly high proportions of younger female death (under 40 years-old) were also observed. 3) In terms of medical security status, medical assistance group occupies 42.3% of medical insurance group while the non-security group also occupies 11.8% of total death. 4) Treatment interruption was observed in 78% of total death. Conclusion: Special attention should be given to the identification, management and follow up of high risk group in nationwide tuberculosis control program.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 1985

Vitamin C is known as an integral element for the formation and maintenance of intercellular supporting structures. Ascorbic acid has been used for the treatment of certain poisonings and hypovitaminosis(scurvy) but also known as a powerful reducing agent, and can kill a variety of bacteria and detoxify bacterial exotoxins including various clostridial exotoxins in vitro. For viruses, vitamin C inactivates herpes virus, vaccinia virus and influenza virus and has been used for the prevention and treatment of the common cold. Thus ascorbic acid plays an important role in antimicrobial action. Scurvy also promotes the development of tubercles in experimentally infected guinea pig and the tuberculosis patients require more vitamin C than normal persons. However there is no reports that ascorbic acid could inhibit the growh of M. tuberculosis. In this paper, antibacterial effects of ascorbic acid against M. tuberculosis were studied. The results are as follows: 1. The single use of the ascorbic acid exhibited antibacterial effect in vitro against $5{\times}10^3/ml$ of M. tuberculosis $H_{37}$ Rv at the concentration of ascorbic acid 0.625mg/ml over 3 hours exposure and 0.05mg/ml over 9 hours exposure. 2. In vivo mice administered with ascorbic acid 50mg/day for 5, 10 and 15 days respectively were protected from M. tuberculosis $2LD_{50}$, $3LD_{50}$, $4LD_{50}$ and $5LD_{50}$ given intravenously.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.81 no.1
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• pp.6-12
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• 2018

The role of the treatment for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) has been underscored in the intermediate tuberculosis (TB) burden countries like South Korea. LTBI treatment is recommended only for patients at risk for progression to active TB-those with frequent exposure to active TB cases, and those with clinical risk factors (e.g., immunocompromised patients). Recently revised National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline recommended that close contacts of individuals with active pulmonary or laryngeal TB, aged between 18 and 65 years, should undergo LTBI treatment. Various regimens for LTBI treatment were recommended in NICE, World Health Organization (WHO), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, and superiority of one recommended regimen over another was not yet established. Traditional 6 to 9 months of isoniazid (6H or 9H) regimen has an advantage of the most abundant evidence for clinical efficacy-60%-90% of estimated protective effect. However, 6H or 9H regimen is related with hepatotoxicity and low compliance. Four months of rifampin regimen is characterized by less hepatotoxicity and better compliance than 9H, but has few evidence of clinical efficacy. Three months of isoniazid plus rifampin was proved equivalence with 6H or 9H regimen in terms of efficacy and safety, which was recommended in NICE and WHO guidelines. The clinical efficacy of isoniazid plus rifapentine once-weekly regimen for 3 months was demonstrated recently, which is not yet introduced into South Korea.