The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus slammed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday, accusing the organization of failing to react sooner to a nationwide outbreak of conjunctivitis.
At a press conference in the legislature, KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (
"At the very beginning of the outbreak, the DOH and the CDC regarded the cases as regular conjunctivitis and it never occurred to them that other kinds of bacteria could have been responsible. Therefore, they did not take the outbreak seriously," Hsieh said.
PHOTO: CNA
Hsieh said the outbreak first hit Keelung and Yunlin on Oct. 4, but the CDC did not collect samples from patients to determine the cause of the condition until Oct. 8 although several thousand pinkeye cases had been reported.
The CDC confirmed on Thursday that Coxackievirus type 24, an enterovirus, was responsible.
"A CDC official told me in private that Coxackievirus type 24 once infected 40 percent of the residents of a town abroad. That is to say, the virus has the ability to infect up to 40 percent [of a population]," Hsieh said, asking if a similar situation could occur in Taiwan.
"[The DOH and CDC] completely ignored the possible serious consequences of such an acute disease," Hsieh said, adding that the conjunctivitis outbreak has spread to Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Steve Kuo (
Kuo said that Coxackievirus type 24 contributed to a similar outbreak in Central and South America between August and October 2003, during which time hundreds of thousands of people were infected, although the infection rarely caused serious health problems.
Kuo said 10,510 students nationwide had been infected with the disease as of Friday with cases concentrated in Keelung, Yunlin, Taipei, Kaohsiung and Chiayi.
"What is alarming is that the outbreak implies that people in the country still have poor health habits," Kuo said.
Starting yesterday for three weeks, Taipei City schools must report cases of pinkeye to help track the outbreak, a city government education official said yesterday.
Department of Education Director Wu Ching-chi (
Additional reporting by CNA
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