An 87-year-old Tainan man has died of dengue fever, the second fatal case recorded in the city and in the nation this year, the Tainan Department of Health said yesterday.
Since the start of the year, nearly 1,000 cases of dengue fever have been confirmed in the city, spread throughout 23 of its 37 districts, the department said.
The first dengue death of the year was recorded on Monday last week, a 73-year-old man who lived in the South District (南區).
The second fatality lived in the West Central District (中西) and died in a local hospital on Wednesday last week, six days after he developed a fever. He had been suffering from cancer and a chronic lung disease, the department said.
The mosquito-borne disease has been spreading rapidly in Tainan this year, skyrocketing from 330 cases as of Aug. 3 to 993 at present. Most of the 716 cases recorded nationwide have been in Tainan.
The Tainan City Government has been carrying out fumigation of the Northern District (北區), where more than half of the city’s cases have been reported.
Dengue fever symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, and skin rash.
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