Decreased patient visits for ankle sprain during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea: A nationwide retrospective study.

Social distancing measures including school closure and the cancelation of sports activity were enforced during the early phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to reduce the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in South Korea. To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nationwide burden of musculoskeletal injury in 2020, we analyzed data on the number of patient visits for ankle sprain in South Korea. We collected national reimbursement data on the number of patient visits for ankle sprain between August 2010 and July 2020. To quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of reductions in patient visits for ankle sprain, we developed a regression model adjusting for the annual cycle of the patient visit during 2016/17-2018/19. During the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, the overall number of patient visits for ankle sprain dropped by 7.9%. The number of patient visits for ankle sprain substantially reduced by 23.4% among school-aged children (6-19 years) during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea. Our findings suggest that the social distancing measure has had a positive impact on reducing the burden of medical usages for ankle sprain.

Self-Quarantine Noncompliance During the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea.

OBJECTIVES: In South Korea, many individuals were self-quarantined for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) after the quarantine criteria were extended to all overseas travelers. This study was conducted to identify the noncompliance rate of self-quarantine for COVID-19 cases and assess the impact of a 1-strike out policy and an increased amount of penalty for the violating self-quarantine in South Korea. METHODS: The self-quarantine noncompliance rate for COVID-19 was examined using publicly available data. We collected the daily number of quarantine and quarantine violation cases from March 22 to June 10, 2020. A Poisson regression analysis was conducted to identify the impact of additional sanctions for the quarantine violation. RESULTS: The median number of individuals quarantined per day was 36,561 (interquartile range, 34,408-41,961). The median number of daily self-quarantine violations was 6 (range, 0-13). The median rate of self-quarantine violations was 1.6 per 10,000 self-quarantined individuals (range, 0.0-8.0 per 10,000 self-quarantined individuals). The additional sanction has no significant impact on the number of violations among quarantine individuals (P = 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: The additional sanction for the violation of quarantined individuals did not reduce the self-quarantine violations. Further studies are warranted to strengthen the compliance of self-quarantine for future pandemics.

Decreased Use of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Epidemic in South Korea.

BACKGROUND: Early in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there was a concern over possible increase in antibiotic use due to coinfections among COVID-19 patients in the community. Here, we evaluate the changes in nationwide use of broad-spectrum antibiotics during the COVID-19 epidemic in South Korea. METHODS: We obtained national reimbursement data on the prescription of antibiotics, including penicillin with ß-lactamase inhibitors, cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, and macrolides. We examined the number of antibiotic prescriptions compared with the previous 3 years in the same period from August to July. To quantify the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on antibiotic use, we developed a regression model adjusting for changes of viral acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs), which are an important factor driving antibiotic use. RESULTS: During the COVID-19 epidemic in South Korea, the broad-spectrum antibiotic use dropped by 15%-55% compared to the previous 3 years. Overall reduction in antibiotic use adjusting for ARTIs was estimated to be 14%-30%, with a larger impact in children. CONCLUSIONS: Our study found that broad-spectrum antibiotic use was substantially reduced during the COVID-19 epidemic in South Korea. This reduction can be in part due to reduced ARTIs as a result of stringent public health interventions including social distancing measures.

Changes of antibiotic prescribing pattern and its resistance to E. Coli in South Korea: a 12-year retrospective observational study.

In the present study, we investigated the pattern of changes in antibiotic prescription and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Escherichia coli in South Korea between 2007 and 2018. We collected data related to antibiotic prescription and AMR in E. coli from the national surveillance system. We used the Mann-Kendall test and Spearman's correlation to identify the trends of antibiotic prescription and AMR in E. coli and to examine the relationship between them, respectively. Although we noted a significant decreasing trend of ampicillin and gentamicin prescriptions in all medical institutions, we identified a higher level of AMR in long-term care facilities than in other medical institutions. We did not identify a significant positive correlation between ampicillin and gentamicin prescriptions and their resistance in E. coli. However, we found a significant positive correlation between cefotaxime prescription and its resistance in E. coli in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and clinics. Our results strongly suggest that long-term care facilities in South Korea have the potential to sustain AMR epidemics and that more efforts are needed to curb AMR in E. coli. Further epidemiological studies using enhanced AMR surveillance are warranted.

Environmental asbestos exposure sources in Korea.

BACKGROUND: Because of the long asbestos-related disease latencies (10-50 years), detection, diagnosis, and epidemiologic studies require asbestos exposure history. However, environmental asbestos exposure source (EAES) data are lacking. OBJECTIVES: To survey the available data for past EAES and supplement these data with interviews. METHODS: We constructed an EAES database using a literature review and interviews of experts, former traders, and workers. Exposure sources by time period and type were visualized using a geographic information system (ArcGIS), web-based mapping (Google Maps), and OpenWeatherMap. The data were mounted in the GIS to show the exposure source location and trend. RESULTS: The majority of asbestos mines, factories, and consumption was located in Chungnam; Gyeonggi, Busan, and Gyeongnam; and Gyeonggi, Daejeon, and Busan, respectively. Shipbuilding and repair companies were mostly located in Busan and Gyeongnam. CONCLUSIONS: These tools might help evaluate past exposure from EAES and estimate the future asbestos burden in Korea.

Design and synthesis of 3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[h]chromene derivatives as potential NF-κB inhibitors.

A novel class of NF-κB inhibitors were designed and synthesized based on KL-1156 (6-hydroxy-7-methoxychroman-2-carboxylic acid phenyl amide) which is unambiguously considered to be a promising inhibitor for the translocation step of NF-κB. Especially in this study we focused on the modifying the chroman moiety of KL-1156 into four parts for exploring the SAR studies linked with physical properties of substituents resulted the development of novel 1a-k, 2a-f, 3a-d and 4a-d derivatives of 3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[h]chromene. From the SAR studies we were very delightfully identified that several new N-aryl-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[h]chromene-2-carboxamide derivatives (1a-k) exhibited good inhibitory activity and anti-proliferative activity than parent lead compound KL-1156, among them 1i exhibited outstanding inhibitory effect on LPS-induced NF-κB transcriptional activity and anti-proliferative activity on NCI-H23 lung cancer cell lines than KL-1156.