The increasing number of reported scarlet fever cases during 2011‒2016 in the National Notifiable Infectious Disease database in South Korea occurred because of increased overall reporting and expanded reporting criteria rather than because of increasing scarlet fever incidence. Further increases are anticipated because of other expansions in reporting requirements.
Keywords: Korea; Republic of Korea; South Korea; bacteria; group A Streptococcus; incidence; notification; outbreak; respiratory infections; scarlet fever; streptococci; surveillance.