National Vaccination Coverage Among Children Aged 1-3 Years in the Republic of Korea, 2017

Park Kwangsuk, Lee Jaeyoung, Choi Yeonhwa, Kong Insik
Division of VPD Control & NIP, Center for Infectious Disease Control, KCDC

Background: The most effective way to prevent communicable vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) is to achieve and maintain vaccination coverage level above the threshold of disease transmission prevention. In the Republic of Korea, the government established a strategy for achieving more than 95% of immunization coverage through routine vaccinations and/or supplemental immunization activities. The national level of vaccination coverage is a critical performance process indicator of the National Immunization Program (NIP). The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) publicly reported the national level of vaccination coverage since 2015.
Methods/results: This report details the vaccination coverage for the year 2017, using 1.29 million data of children from the National Registration Information System. The calculations of vaccine coverages are modeled on birth cohorts at ages of 12 months (born in 2016), 24 months (born in 2015), and 36 months (born in 2014). The complete vaccination coverage of subjects aged 12, 24, and 36 months in 2017 were 96.6%, 94.1%, and 90.4%, respectively. According to the birth cohorts, the vaccination coverages of NIP were higher than 95%, except for Japanese encephalitis (92.9%).
Conclusion: Vaccination coverage in the Republic of Korea was higher than that in many developed countries. Nonetheless, more investment and research are needed to identify vaccination hesitancy and refusal groups, as well as all VPD group.

Keywords: Vaccination, Immunization, Coverage, Vaccination hesitancy