The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday urged the public to observe proper hand and food hygiene, amid a surge in hospital visits due to diarrhea last week and the seasonal prevalence of the norovirus.
From Oct. 27 to Saturday, there were 126,558 hospital visits due to diarrhea — higher than the number of cases in the same week in 2017 and last year, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said.
There were also 55 clustered cases of diarrhea reported in the past four weeks, higher than the number in September and in the same period last year, she said, adding that 36 of the clustered cases were on school campuses.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
Most of the clustered cases were caused by the norovirus, which is highly contagious and commonly spread through contaminated food or water, the CDC said, urging people to observe good hand and food hygiene.
As temperatures begin to drop, more people are visiting hot-pot and grilled-food eateries, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said, cautioning people about the risk of norovirus infection if seafood is not cooked thoroughly.
There are many types of noroviruses, so people at any age can be infected through direct or indirect contact with an infected person, such as touching the surface of a contaminated item and then touching their nose, mouth or eyes, Lo said.
Symptoms of norovirus infection, such as diarrhea and vomiting, usually begin to show one to three days after exposure to the virus, he said.
Some people might also have nausea, a fever, headache, body aches and stomach pain that last from one to 10 days, he said.
People, especially food industry workers, who experience these symptoms should rest at home and only return to work or school at least 48 hours after the symptoms are relieved to avoid infecting others, the CDC said.
Liu also reported that there were 11,499 cases of enterovirus infection last week, fewer than the week before, but still in the epidemic phase.
The main circulating virus in the past four weeks was the Coxsackie A virus, Liu said.
Two cases of serious complications from enterovirus infection were reported last week — a one-year-old girl in eastern Taiwan and a five-year-old boy in northern Taiwan, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said.
The girl was first diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease in August, and sought treatment again on Sept. 12 after experiencing weakness in her lower limbs and difficulty walking, which was reported as a case of acute flaccid paralysis, and later confirmed to be a Coxsackie type A5 virus infection, he said.
The boy sought treatment three times early last month for rashes on his limbs, a high fever, vomiting and shortness of breath early last month. He was hospitalized on Oct. 8 after his parents observed that he had involuntary twitching of muscles, and was later confirmed to have enterovirus 71 encephalitis, Lin said.
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:
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