The Center for Disease Control reported another case of dengue fever in Pingtung City's Changan borough yesterday, indicating that a clean-up campaign by both residents and health agencies had failed to contain an outbreak that occurred three weeks ago.
The latest victim, a 74-year-old male, is now receiving medical care and is quarantined in hospital. The center said that it did not identify the case during its first inspection last month because the man was not at home at the time.
According to health officials, a patchy household registration system and administrative problems in the borough made a comprehensive survey impossible.
"There are many old, rickety, abandoned houses in this sparsely populated borough. Some elderly and single people may go out and not return home for several days," said Wu Ping-fuai (吳炳輝), director of the center's division of quarantine and intervention activities.
The report showed that the patient in the latest case lives only 40m away from where the first case was reported on July 12.
"We have already fumigated the site and have taken samples from every location we can find, but there's still room for improvement," Wu said.
Mosquitoes can transmit the disease for eight to 12 days after biting a virus carrier. The disease's incubation period is five to eight days. If mosquito control measures were not strictly observed, Wu said, a second wave could follow two or three weeks after an initial outbreak.
Another obstacle to exterminating virus-carrying Aedes mosquitoes is rain.
Recent rains have filled discarded pots, tires and roof drainpipes in the south, providing ideal environments for the mosquitoes to breed.
The center called for the public to be more alert and urged residents to empty containers on a daily basis.
"It is the peak season for dengue fever now. Our efforts must be consistent or this will not be the last case," center deputy-general Lin Ting (
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