After more than 50 years, rabies has reappeared in Taiwan. The reappearance has created panic and the public is paying close attention to further developments about whether enough vaccination doses are available.
This is a warning to the public health system that, regardless of how good a disease prevention system is, neglect of zoonotic diseases — diseases that are communicable from animals to humans — can have severe consequences. Our disease prevention systems have long been biased toward humans and neglected the monitoring and prevention of animal diseases.
Taiwan’s proudest public health moments were the eradication of malaria and rabies from the island. However, a look at nearby countries, from China to Southeast Asia, reveals the presence of both. Now that rabies has returned to Taiwan, there are concerns that malaria could return too.
In addition to rabies and malaria, there are many other zoonotic diseases, such as the H7N9 avian influenza in China, the H6N1 here in Taiwan and the new coronavirus strain that has appeared in the Middle East. These occurrences are repeatedly highlighting the increasing importance of work to prevent zoonotic diseases.
The recently established Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) should strengthen the following aspects of Taiwan’s public health and disease prevention systems:
First, set up a long-term, interdepartmental epidemic investigation task force. When dealing with zoonotic diseases, epidemic prevention specialists and veterinarians should study epidemics together and take an active approach to actively communicate their progress and findings to the media and the public in order to avoid a situation where the media increase public fear and distrust in the government though the media might insist they are trying to help.
Second, establish a system to integrate the monitoring of human and animal epidemics. In the past, disease surveillance has been carried out separately. The CDC has been in charge of surveillance of human disease, while the Council of Agriculture has handled the surveillance of animal disease. Information must flow smoothly between these institutions or else epidemic monitoring and control could fail to spot an epidemic “time bomb.”
The ministry, in addition to pushing the council to become more transparent in its information handling, should set up a reporting system that unites animal and human epidemic info. When announcing human epidemics, the ministry would then also be able to announce animal epidemics that are being monitored. This is the appropriate response to the threat posed by zoonotic diseases.
Third, invest resources in education and in establishing a reporting system. Correct information and understanding of infectious diseases are necessary for a rational response from the public when dealing with outbreaks of infections disease. The public should also be taught how to report and react when they encounter dead animals.
During the West Nile virus outbreak in the US in 1999, it was thanks to a well designed public reporting system that such large numbers of dead birds could be found so quickly.
Using such a system of public reports in connection with Google Maps could help the ministry and the CDC discover epidemics at an early stage. The same approach could be used to handle avian flu, rabies and malaria.
Chao Day-yu is associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Microbiology and Public Health at National Chung Hsing University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this