The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday urged the public to remove any discarded containers and exposed stores of water as an outbreak of dengue fever continues to spread.
“Last week, 124 new cases of dengue fever were reported in the nation; including 10 imported cases, of which six originated from the Philippines, and one each from Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia,” CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Chuang said that among the 114 locally acquired cases, 102 were reported in Tainan, 10 in Kaohsiung, and one each in Chiayi and Pingtung counties, adding that it was the first known case of dengue fever in Pingtung this year.
The Pingtung case involves a 53-year-old man living in the Pingtung City’s Yongcheng Borough (永城), who experienced joint and bone pains on July 25 before being confirmed as infected with the mosquito-borne disease on Thursday last week, Chuang said.
“Local health authorities inspected the man’s neighborhood yesterday and found extremely high concentrations of mosquitoes in the area,” he said.
“They have subsequently conducted a thorough and extensive environmental disinfection,” he added.
Citing research the centers jointly conducted with the UK’s Oxford University on the distribution of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes in Taiwan, Chuang said temperature plays a key role in the habitats preferred by the two species.
A aegypti and A albopictus mosquitoes are the main vectors for the dengue virus.
“Given that weather experts have predicted this year to be a ‘super El Nino year,’ we do not rule out the outbreak spreading to northern parts of the country if temperatures remain high during winter,” Chuang said.
CDC official Teng Hwa-jen (鄧華真) said dengue fever cases have been scarce in northern Taiwan, mainly because the region is primarily populated by the less infectious Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.
“Research showed that the optimal temperature for hatching A aegypti larvae is 28oC,” Teng said.
“This is why the species suffers a mortality rate of nearly 70 percent in northern part of the country and hence the low prevalence rate of dengue fever,” Teng said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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