The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday urged medical practitioners to be vigilant after a new dengue fever case was diagnosed only on a third visit to a doctor.
A man in his 60s who lives in Jhongsiao Borough (忠孝) in Tainan’s East District (東區) was diagnosed with the disease after symptoms appeared on Saturday last week. He has not traveled overseas recently.
The man sought treatment on Sunday last week and Thursday for fever, headache, loss of appetite and fatigue, but dengue fever was not diagnosed, the CDC said.
Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control
City health authorities tracking those who had direct contact with people diagnosed with the disease spoke with the man on Friday and test results showed the he was infected with dengue virus type 2.
During the incubation period, the man visited Barclay Memorial Park and Fucheng Kai-Di Temple (府城開帝殿) in East District, the centers said.
His workplace in Chongde Borough (崇德) is close to the homes of people previously confirmed to have the disease, so he might have contracted the disease there, it said.
Fifty-four indigenous dengue cases have been confirmed so far this year, 42 in Kaohsiung and 12 in Tainan, the centers said, adding that 225 cases were brought in from other countries, the most for the period in the past decade.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that as initial symptoms of dengue are similar to those of many common diseases, doctors should be extra vigilant and ask people they treat about recent travel or if they live in or near areas where dengue cases have been reported.
A low-pressure system that brought heavy rain to many areas in southern Taiwan in the past week caused flooding and puddles, so people should remove standing water to prevent mosquitoes from breeding, the centers said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods