The novel coronavirus 2019 found last month in Wuhan, China, can likely be transmitted person-to-person, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that “severe special infectious pneumonia” has been listed as a group 5 notifiable infectious disease.
The viral outbreak reported last month in Wuhan affected 41 people, and the virus was identified and named last week.
“The WHO on Tuesday said that there might have been limited human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus,” CDC Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
“Limited human-to-human transmission” generally means that people within 1m of an infected person for about 10 minutes could contract the virus, so those at risk are usually members of the same household or medical professionals treating infected patients, he said.
China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday reported that the number of patients infected with the virus remains at 41, including six with severe symptoms and one death, Chou said, adding that two infected are a married couple.
Only the husband worked at the Huanan Seafood City market in Wuhan — most of the reported cases were linked to the market — so Chinese authorities reasoned that human-to-human transmission within a household could not be ruled out, he said.
A SARS coronavirus is highly contagious with most of those infected having severe symptoms, but the virus in Wuhan is more like Middle East respiratory syndrome in terms of rate of infection and percentage with severe symptoms, Chou said.
The centers have listed severe special infectious pneumonia as a group 5 notifiable infectious disease effective immediately, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said.
Doctors are required to report patients to the CDC if they have traveled to Wuhan in the previous 14 days, experience fever and respiratory symptoms, or were diagnosed with pneumonia, he added.
According to the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法), doctors and paramedics who fail to report a suspected case of notifiable infectious disease may face a fine of NT$90,000 to NT$450,000 (US$3,005 to US$15,025), with the healthcare facility subject to a fine of NT$300,000 to NT$2 million.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS