Three new cases of Japanese encephalitis were reported in southern Taiwan last week and the disease has claimed its first victim this year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced yesterday.
The three new cases are a man in his 60s living in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營), a man in his 50s living in Pingtung County’s Nanzhou Township (南州) and a man in his 40s living in Chiayi County’s Lioujiao Township (六腳), CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said.
A total of seven cases have been confirmed this year: four in Kaohsiung and one each in Chiayi City, Chiayi County and Pingtung, he said, adding that in the same period from 2015 to last year, there were between five and 18 cases, most of which involved adults older than 40.
The three new people infected with the disease did not visit other nations recently, but all live or work near paddies, ponds, pig farms or fowl houses, so local health bureaus have sent inspectors to survey and disinfect areas near their homes and workplaces, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said.
The fatality was a woman in her 50s who lived in Kaohsiung and was placed in an intensive care unit on May 28, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said.
Japanese encephalitis is a viral infection that is primarily transmitted through bites by three types of mosquitoes — Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Culex annulus and Culex fuscocephala — in Taiwan, he said.
Most people infected with the disease do not exhibit symptoms, but those who do could experience headaches, fever, aseptic meningitis, general malaise, disorientation and unilateral muscular weakness or paralysis, with severe cases ending in death or a coma, he added.
The Central Weather Bureau has forecast that Taiwan will this year experience El Nino, and temperatures in Kaohsiung have risen above their three-decade averages, so the arrival of the rainy season last month was accompanied by an increase in the number of mosquitoes, Chuang said.
Twenty cases of indigenous dengue fever have been reported in Kaohsiung this year and 171 cases that originated in other nations, the CDC said.
The agency urged people to avoid outdoor activity or to use insect repellent and wear protective clothing when going outside during peak mosquito hours — early in the morning and evening — and emphasized that people should avoid going near ponds, farms with livestock and other mosquito breeding areas.
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