The dengue fever outbreak remains at its peak in Kaohsiung, with 287 new cases reported in the municipality on Sunday, according to statistics compiled by the Central Epidemic Command Center.
There were 77 more cases recorded on Sunday than on the same day the previous week, bringing the total number of dengue fever cases reported in Kaohsiung since May 1 to 10,966, the center said yesterday.
In Tainan — the most seriously affected area — 23 new cases were reported on Sunday, equal to the number of new cases reported the previous week. That brings the total number of cases in Tainan to 22,387, statistics show.
There were a total of 316 new cases reported nationwide on Sunday, bringing the total number of indigenous dengue fever cases reported to 33,984 since the summer began, the center said.
One person is suspected to have died of the mosquito-borne disease on Sunday, bringing the number of suspected dengue fever deaths to 33.
There have been 150 confirmed deaths from dengue fever since May 1, with 111 deaths in Tainan, 37 in Kaohsiung and two in Pingtung.
Thirty-six patients with dengue fever are being treated in intensive care, but 31,572 poeple have recovered from the disease this year — a recovery rate of 92.9 percent, the center said.
Last year, 15,732 dengue fever cases were eported, the highest annual number since authorities began keeping records.
Before that, the highest number of cases recorded annually was about 2,000, in both 2007 and 2010.
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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POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
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