The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said that while the number of flu-like cases dropped slightly last week, the peak season is not over, while enterovirus infections are likely to peak this week.
CDC disease monitoring data showed a 6.7 percent drop in reports of flu-like cases last week, with a total of 119.543 cases reported at outpatient clinics or emergency rooms nationwide.
There were 128,190 cases reported the week before, the data showed.
“We finally saw the number of weekly reported flu-like cases drop for the first time since May,” CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said, adding that the centers think the peak is over.
When the number of mild cases begins to drop, serious complications or death might still be high in the following one to two weeks, which is a result of the peak period, but the numbers will gradually drop along with the number of mild cases, Lo said.
People should still be cautious and maintain good personal hygiene, he said. They should wear a mask when experiencing respiratory symptoms, cover the nose and mouth when sneezing, rest at home when sick and seek immediate medical attention if signs of serious complications occur.
CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said 29 clustered cases of upper respiratory or flu-like symptoms were reported last week, showing a declining three-week trend.
Among the clustered cases, 20 were confirmed to be the flu, with influenza A (H3N2) the main strain and about 8 percent of the cases being influenza B, Liu said.
In addition, the CDC received reports of 10,618 cases of enterovirus infection last week, a slight increase from the week before.
It said cases this week would likely surpass 11,000 as they enter the peak period.
Newborns are considered a high-risk group for enterovirus infection, so if friends or family are planning to visit newborns, they should wash their hands thoroughly with soap before approaching the baby and refrain from visiting when they have respiratory symptoms.
CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said that a baby of less than one month was reported to have enterovirus with severe complications, marking the youngest case reported this year.
The infant was recovering, Lin said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not