On the afternoon of October 29, the National Wildlife Disease Control Center (President No Hee-kyung), an affiliate organization of the Ministry of Environment, held an opening ceremony at the Center located in Samgeo-dong, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju, to begin all time responses to wildlife diseases.

About 30 participants attended the opening ceremony, including Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City and those from related organizations as well as wildlife experts.

The National Wildlife Disease Control Center (hereinafter referred to as the disease control center) is a national agency that oversees the management of wildlife diseases, which was established on September 29. 

The center consists of 1 director and 3 teams (disease monitoring team, disease response team, disease research team). There are about 289 (77 types) research and experiment equipment in the center's business facilities of the biosafety research building (2,148㎡) and administrative building (4,120㎡).

Currently, the center is recruiting professionals such as researchers to work at the disease control center in order to enhance expertise in study and research on wildlife diseases.

Wildlife diseases are acting as a major factor threatening the survival of the wildlife population and health of the ecosystem. Some diseases are transmitted to humans and livestock through wildlife animals, causing social and economic damages.

In the case of wild rabbits (Korean hares), which were common in the mountains and fields of Korea, their number is rapidly decreasing due to a viral hemorrhagic disease. A third of the world's amphibians are threatened with extinction due to chytridiomycosis. Such disease cases that are threatening the population of wildlife are increasing.

In addition, avian influenza (AI), African swine fever (ASF) and severe febrile thrombocytopenia (SFTS) are diseases that can be transmitted to wildlife, humans, and livestock. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 75% of new human diseases discovered in the past 30 years originate from wildlife.

Unlike humans and livestock, there have been no dedicated agencies for managing wildlife diseases. There was a limit to study on the current status of wildlife diseases, their impact on ecosystems, livestock and humans, prevention of disease transmission from wildlife to humans as well as systematic response to disease occurrence.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Environment has promoted the establishment of a specialized institution based on the 1st Basic Plan for Wildlife Disease Control (from 2016-2020, goal of establishing a response basis for wildlife by 2020).

With the opening of the disease control center, the final piece was completed to establish an integrated health management system (One Health*) following a system for people (Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency)-Livestock (Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency) as well as efficient monitoring and response to wildlife diseases.    

* One Health: Promoting an integrated disease management between human-animal-environment for effective disease control considering interspecies transmission

The disease control center will work as a general center (control tower) in cooperation with local governments and related organizations to prevent the spread of wildlife diseases. 

In addition to the investigation, constant monitoring and responding to wildlife diseases (139 diseases) stipulated in the "Wildlife Protection and Management Act", the center also conducts surveillance and monitoring on the inflow of new diseases to Korea.

The center plans to enhance cooperation with related organizations to conduct quarantine of livestock for diseases such as AI and ASF, respond to zoonosis and improve disease information systems including information on wildlife diseases and epidemiological investigation results.

The center actively promotes the development of standard diagnostic methods for wildlife diseases as well as R&D on vaccine and quarantine technologies.

It promotes the development of standard diagnosis methods for major legal diseases for each wildlife species and conduct researches on risk assessment of wildlife diseases, such as pathogen characteristics and high-risk pathogenicity evaluation.

Furthermore, the center begins to develop high-sensitivity diagnostic equipment (kits) that reflects the characteristics of disease occurrence sites and it also conducts technology research on preventing and responding to wildlife diseases, such as researching new and variant diseases as well as developing a research system.

"The center should be able to contribute to the preservation of human and animal health as well as natural ecosystems through preemptive investigation and research on wildlife diseases," said Minister Cho Myung-rae at his commemorative address.