The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday announced three new cases of COVID-19, all of them imported, bringing the nation’s total number of confirmed cases to 385.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that two of the cases were tested at the airport upon their arrival in Taiwan and the other was under mandatory home quarantine.
Case No. 383 is a man in his 60s who works in the US and had sought treatment for an upset stomach, loss of appetite and a fever in the US, Chen said.
Photo: AP / Chiang Ying-ying
Case No. 384 is a man in his 70s who lives in the US and started coughing up phlegm on Friday last week, he said.
Both men returned to Taiwan on Friday, reported their health conditions to airport quarantine officers, were reported for testing and their test results came out positive yesterday, Chen said.
Case No. 385 is a woman in her 20s who studied in France, returned to Taiwan on Friday last week and was put under home quarantine, he said.
The next day, she developed a runny and stuffy nose and a fever, and was arranged for testing and treatment by the local health department, Chen said.
A total of 385 cases — 331 imported and 54 domestic — have been confirmed in Taiwan, Chen said, adding that they include six deaths and 99 people discharged from hospital after treatment, with the rest still hospitalized.
Asked about an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that more than two-thirds of severely ill COVID-19 patients saw their conditions improve after being treated with the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, CECC advisory specialist panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said that it seems to be the most promising drug for treating COVID-19 so far.
He said the article analyzed the effects of remdesivir compassionate use for people with severe COVID-19 in Europe, Japan and the US, which suggested that the mortality was 13 percent after completing remdesivir treatment and 18 percent among patients receiving invasive ventilation.
The effects of remdesivir seem positive compared with another study, which suggested that the mortality rate of patients with severe COVID-19 in the UK is nearly 50 percent, Chang said.
The drug has also been used on nine patients in Taiwan, and so far the effects have been good, including a patient who was taken off a ventilator after being treated with remdesivir, he said.
Chen also said that many people are concerned about whether COVID-19 patients who have experienced abnormalities in their senses of taste or smell can recover from the symptom.
An analysis of 37 patients in northern Taiwan who have been discharged from hospitals showed that 11 of them had experienced the symptom, Chen said.
Most of them experienced a loss of or abnormalities in their senses of taste and smell, while only a few experienced one abnormal sense.
Most of them recovered after seven to 10 days, he said.
However, two people have not fully recovered two to three weeks after they were discharged, he said.
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