No evidence has yet been found of an outbreak of scabies among pupils from one class at Taipei Municipal Dunhua Elementary School, which last week filed a report after 24 students in the same class began to experience rashes and itchiness, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday.
The department’s Division for Disease Control and Prevention said it had received a report of the cases on Friday afternoon, but as pupils had already left school, it started investigations at the campus the next day.
Only about six or seven children displayed symptoms when Division Director Chen Shao-ching (陳少卿) and the inspectors visited the school, and other children had already been taken to see doctors by their parents, Chen said.
“Most of the diagnoses identified insect bites, urticaria, eczema or skin allergies,” she said.
However, as the cases were highly concentrated, a few doctors suspected the symptoms to be caused by scabies, she added.
After a doctor from Mackay Memorial Hospital voiced his suspicions, the division on Saturday prescribed medication to students who were still experiencing symptoms and disinfected the classroom while the pupils were temporarily moved to another classroom, officials said.
The division on Monday collected skin samples from the three students who had the most serious symptoms and so far results were all negative for scabies, Chen said.
The school yesterday said the students and their teacher first began experiencing rashes and itchiness on Wednesday last week, so it immediately conducted disinfection measures in the afternoon and also asked parents to take their children to a doctor.
Asked whether the school had reported the cases too late, the health department said clustered cases of scabies are required to be reported within seven days after discovery, but so far the scabies had not been confirmed.
However, the department said it would continue to check up on the students.
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