- Parasitic Diseases as the Cause of Death of Prisoners of War during the Korean War (1950-1953)
- ㆍ 저자명
- Huh. Sun
- ㆍ 간행물명
- The Korean journal of parasitology
- ㆍ 권/호정보
- 2014년|52권 3호|pp.335-337 (3 pages)
- ㆍ 발행정보
- 대한기생충학회
- ㆍ 파일정보
- 정기간행물| PDF텍스트
- ㆍ 주제분야
- 기타
To determine the cause of death of prisoners of war during the Korean War (1950-1953), death certificates or medical records were analyzed. Out of 7,614 deaths, 5,013 (65.8%) were due to infectious diseases. Although dysentery and tuberculosis were the most common infectious diseases, parasitic diseases had caused 14 deaths: paragonimiasis in 5, malaria in 3, amoebiasis in 2, intestinal parasitosis in 2, ascariasis in 1, and schistosomiasis in 1. These results showed that paragonimiasis, malaria, and amoebiasis were the most fatal parasitic diseases during the early 1950s in the Korean Peninsula. Since schistosomiasis is not endemic to Korea, it is likely that the infected private soldier moved from China or Japan to Korea.