The history of vaccination and current vaccination policies in Korea

There may be many reasons for the significant decrease in the incidence of the pediatric infectious diseases in modern Korea; this could be due to the improvement of sanitary facilities, significant growth of Korean economy, improvement of nutrition, development and dissemination of antibiotics and implantation of vaccination, and overall improvement of medical technology. The development of vaccination has been highlighted as a striking achievement of the modern medical sciences with new technologies in many fields of medicine. Since 1876, the method for vaccination has opened its new era by Suk-Young Jee, known as the Jenner in Korea who wrote a book about smallpox vaccination, and it led an opportunity to propagate the needs for the vaccination in Korea. There was a time when pediatric wards were full of patients with parasitic diseases and many vaccine-preventable diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, Japanese B encephalitis, and poliomyelitis in 1950s-1960s. (The rest omitted)