The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday released a processing flow chart and contact tracing guidelines for the handling of monkeypox cases, after the nation’s first case of the disease was reported on Friday.
Nine close contacts of the case have been identified, and their health would be monitored for 21 days, the center said.
The first case is a man in his 20s living in southern Taiwan. He had studied in Germany from January and returned to Taiwan on Thursday last week.
Photo: CNA
Twenty close contacts of the man had been identified as of yesterday morning, but after receiving the guidelines, the local health department revised the number to nine people: three family members, five healthcare practitioners and another person.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said the close contacts have not developed any symptoms and are required to monitor their health for 21 days after they were last exposed to the man.
The contact tracing guidelines state that close contacts can be classified into three infection risk categories: high, medium and low.
High or medium-risk contacts should monitor their health for 21 days, during which they are advised to avoid contact with immunocompromised people, children and pregnant women, and avoid having sex.
Low-risk contacts would only receive educational information about the disease.
Chuang said monkeypox is more often transmitted from person to person through intimate physical contact, and can also spread through direct contact with the infectious rash, scabs, body fluids and respiratory droplets, but the risk of transmission while having a short meal together or in similar situations is relatively low.
Taiwan’s first case had a fever, sore throat, muscle aches, a rash and swollen lymph nodes in the groin area on Monday, the CDC said on Friday.
He sought medical attention on Tuesday and Wednesday, and was reported as a suspected case of monkeypox, the center said.
The test result was positive, so he was placed in a negative pressure-isolation room in hospital, it added.
Monkeypox is usually a mild disease, with most of those infected recovering within a few weeks without treatment, so the only treatment prescribed would be symptomatic and supportive, as there is no drug approved specifically to treat monkeypox in Taiwan, Chuang said.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
HIGH-TECH DEAL: Chipmakers that expand in the US would be able to import up to 2.5 times their new capacity with no extra tariffs during an approved construction period Taiwan aims to build a “democratic” high-tech supply chain with the US and form a strategic artificial intelligence (AI) partnership under the new tariffs deal it sealed with Washington last week, Taipei’s top negotiator in the talks said yesterday. US President Donald Trump has pushed Taiwan, a major producer of semiconductors which runs a large trade surplus with the US, to invest more in the US, specifically in chips that power AI. Under the terms of the long-negotiated deal, chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) that expand US production would incur a lower tariff on semiconductors or related manufacturing
RSS