Infectious Disease Trends in 2024: What Drove the Surge? 

KDCA Releases Analysis of Notifiable Infectious Disease Trends – Infectious disease cases up 54.5% year-on-year in 2024

- KDCA publishes the 2024 Annual Report on Notified Infectious Diseases in Korea based on data from the Infectious Disease Information System (IDIS).
- The surge in cases in 2024 was driven by outbreaks of respiratory infections, such as pertussis, particularly among children and adolescents.
- Cases of pertussis, scarlet fever, varicella, and CRE infections rosed, whereas those of mumps, tuberculosis, and viral hepatitis C and A declined.

Osong, 3 July 2025 – The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) has published the 2024 Annual Report on Notified Infectious Diseases in Korea, which analyzes trends in notifiable infectious diseases reported nationwide over the past year through the Infectious Disease Information System (IDIS) (formerly the National Infectious Disease Surveillance System).

The annual report includes statistics on 89 notifiable infectious diseases (Classes 1 to 4) as defined under Article 2 of the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act. Among 66 diseases under routine comprehensive surveillance (Classes 1 to 3), 40 were reported in 2024, while 26 had no reported cases.

In 2024, a total of 168,586 cases of notifiable infectious diseases (Classes 1 to 3) were reported (329 cases per 100,000 population), marking a 54.5% increase (+59,499 cases) compared to the previous year (109,087 cases). This figure excludes COVID-19 (5,517,540 cases) and syphilis (2,790 cases), both of which were reclassified between 2023 and 2024.

* Note: COVID-19 was reclassified from Class 2 to Class 4 in August 2023, while syphilis moved from Class 4 to Class 3 in January 2024.



※ Please refer to the attached files.