The peak season for enterovirus infections is over, but three cases of serious complications from enterovirus infection were confirmed last week, including a rare case, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
Last week, 16,299 people had confirmed cases of enterovirus infections, a 5.4 percent decline from the week before, indicating that the peak infection season has passed, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said.
However, the epidemic season is not over yet, Liu added.
Photo: CNA
Twenty-two people have had serious complications of enterovirus infection this year, 15 of whom were infected with enterovirus 71 (EV71), two with enterovirus D68, and five with five other subtypes of enteroviruses.
CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said that three people were reported to have serious complications of enterovirus infection: a two-year-old boy in northern Taiwan, a two-year-old girl in southern Taiwan — both infected with EV71 — and a rare case of a 17-year-old boy in northern Taiwan who was infected with coxsackievirus A6.
The teenager showed symptoms of fever, herpangina (small, blister-like bumps or ulcers in the mouth), weakness in the limbs, difficulty breathing and hypoxemia (an abnormally low level of oxygen in the blood), and later developed hepatitis and pneumonia.
The risk of coxsackievirus A6 causing serious complications and hepatitis, as well as serious complication of enteroviruses infection occurring in a teenager, is low, Lin said.
Usually, children under five are at higher risk of serious complications, but older children and adolescents might still be at risk, he said.
The three patients have fully recovered and have been discharged from hospital, Lin said.
Separately, three new cases of Japanese encephalitis were confirmed last week, the CDC said.
The patients are two men and one woman aged 50 to 80 who have never been vaccinated against the disease, it said.
They are from Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音), Taichung’s Taiping District (太平) and Changhua County’s Homei Township (和美), and all live in or have been near rice paddies, pig farms or pigeon houses, which are high-risk areas for contracting mosquito-borne diseases, the CDC said.
Fifteen cases of Japanese encephalitis, including two deaths, have been confirmed this year, and the peak period is in June and July, Lin said, urging people to take measures to prevent mosquito bites.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS