Background and aims:Laboratory education on pathology for undergraduate medical student has traditionally been conducted by using analog microscopy on glass slides with standard pathological cases. Virtual microscopy was recently introduced as an alternative to conventional microscopy, but there are issues surrounding its in the educational context. Methods: We introduced virtual microscopy in a pathology laboratory class, as an addition to analog microscopy. One hundred and sixty first year-medical students were surveyed using preformed or free questions after use of both virtual and conventional microscopy. Results: Many advantages were noticed and students strongly favored virtual microscopy. Most students reported that use of the virtual microscope can significantly improve performance and learning efficiency. The three most significant advantages of virtual microscopy were freedom from optical stress, better image quality and time saving. Less advantageous points were inconvenient slide selection, less vivid feeling of examining and that the technique was not useful for finding artifacts such as foreign bodies. Although they could save time by using virtual microscopy, more students remained longer in the laboratory room when they used virtual microscopy. Conclusion: Virtual microscopy was accepted by students as an excellent tool to facilitate learning. We believe that virtual microscope is an excellent tool for pathology laboratory education.

ObjectivesHand, Foot and Mouth disease (HFMD) is a highly contagious viral disease that affects young children and frequently causes epidemics. A vaccine is available in China (enterovirus 71) and, the Republic of Korea took the first step to develop a new vaccine. New vaccine development requires that disease burden is calculated in advance so the financial cost, morbidity and mortality can be measured.MethodsData from National Sentinel Surveillance and health insurance systems of 1 million claimants were used. Direct medical and non-medical costs, indirect (caregiving and premature death) costs, cases and related deaths were summarized.ResultsFrom 2010 to 2014, there were an estimated 3,605 to 9,271 cases of HFMD, with 1 to 3 deaths. The estimated socioeconomic disease burden ranged from 80.5 to 164.2 million USD and was similar to that of hepatitis A (93.6–103.8 million USD). Among each costs, costs of caregiving consisted of highest proportion mainly due to hiring caregivers (50% – 60%) or opportunity costs from day off (62% – 69%).ConclusionConsidering the social impact of HFMD, the estimated socioeconomic disease burden is not high and government policies need to focus on reducing the loss of work in caregivers.

Background: Global warming has compromised human health by increasing the incidence of infectious diseases. Scientific evidence is required to expand the knowledge of the association between meteorological factors and the incidence of infectious diseases. Our study focused on meteorological factors such as ambient temperature (AT), humidity, and scrub typhus incidence.Objective: We aimed to investigate the long-term effects of AT and relative humidity (RH) elevation on scrub typhus incidence in South Korea.Method: Meteorological variables were combined with scrub typhus cases reported from 2001 to 2019 in South Korea. A generalized additive model was used to explore the nonlinearity of the lagged association between meteorological variables and weekly scrub typhus incidence. To explore the long-term association between meteorological factors and scrub typhus incidence, the difference between annual mean AT or the annual number of heatwave days during 2001 to 2019 and those of the period 1971–2000 were linearly regressed on annual cumulative scrub typhus incidence.Results: Association between weekly scrub typhus incidence and mean temperature or relative humidity with 15 weeks lags showed V- or U- shaped relationship. Above the threshold temperature (14.9°C to 17.0°C), scrub typhus incidence increased by 1.85% (95% CI: 1.5, 2.2) per 0.1°C elevation in mean temperature with 15 weeks lags. Scrub typhus incidence increased by 3.7% (95% CI: 2.7%, 4.8%) and 2.5% (95% CI: 1.6%, 3.3%) per 0.1°C increase in annual mean temperature and per one day increase in heat wave days.Conclusion: Mean AT elevation and RH increase in summer were associated with an increased incidence of scrub typhus in the fall. Increases in annual mean AT and annual number of heatwave days were associated with an increase in the incidence rate during 2001–2019.

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