The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday issued a level one “watch” health notice for travel to Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province due to an outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness, saying that it has also sent a request to health professionals in Wuhan for information to better understand the disease.
People planning to travel to Wuhan and its surrounding areas should take precautions, including avoiding direct exposure to livestock, raw meat markets and infected patients, the agency said, adding that they should also frequently wash their hands with soap, cover their mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing and wear a surgical mask when entering crowded areas.
As of yesterday, 59 people in Wuhan were confirmed to have contracted the unidentified viral pneumonia, which was first reported on Tuesday last week, with the cases mainly linked to a local market where seafood, live animals and raw meat are sold.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
As the Lunar New Year is approaching and many Taiwanese in China are expected to return to Taiwan for the holiday, the Executive Yuan has asked the agency to increase preventive measures and send an investigative group to China, CDC Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said on Monday evening.
The agency has sent a letter to the Chinese National Health Commission requesting that the CDC be allowed to send a group of healthcare professionals to Wuhan to exchange information on the situation under the Cross-strait Cooperation Agreement on Medicine and Public Health Affairs (峽兩岸醫藥衛生合作協議), he said.
As the cause of the disease has not been identified, the CDC hopes to observe the clinical symptoms of the patients, treatment methods and the environment in the market, Chou said, adding that the CDC would require the approval of the commission to do its work.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) yesterday said that the commission has replied that it received the letter and would process the case according to standard procedure.
Separately yesterday, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said that 113,987 hospital visits for flu-like illnesses were reported around Taiwan last week, a 2.5 percent increase from the previous week.
As 13.6 percent of the cases were emergency room visits, the flu situation can be considered to be entering the peak season, she said, adding that the dominant circulating strain is influenza A virus subtype H1N1, which accounted for 76 percent of all cases.
Of the 79 serious flu complication cases reported last week, 71 were caused by H1N1, she said.
Two flu-related deaths were confirmed last week: a 67-year-old woman with cardiovascular disease and a 47-year-old woman with cancer, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said, adding that the 47-year-old, who died of septic shock five days after the onset of symptoms, was the youngest flu-related death this flu season.
Two imported cases of measles were reported last week, including a nine-month-old baby who visited Vietnam with her family from September to last month, Liu said.
The other case is a woman in her 20s who contracted the disease during a trip to Italy last month and was infected by a man in her tour group who contracted measles in the Philippines, she added.
During their periods of communicability, the baby took China Airlines (中華航空) Flight CI784 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to Taipei on Wednesday last week, while the woman visited a branch of clothing store Uniqlo in New Taipei City’s St Ignatius Plaza (徐匯廣場) shopping mall and Jing Pin Beihai Restaurant (晶品北海餐廳) on Jixian Road in the New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) on Dec. 28, the CDC said, adding that people who were in those locations and have experienced symptoms of the disease should report to their local health department.
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