Among 52 travelers who arrived from China, Hong Kong or Macau with respiratory illness and received a voluntary pathogen screening test at an airport quarantine station, 32 tested positive for one of the five screened respiratory viruses, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the voluntary testing would likely continue until the Lunar New Year holiday in February.
As a surge in respiratory illnesses including pneumonia, mostly among children, has been reported in China, the CDC on Sunday last week notified international airport quarantine stations to increase alertness and encouraged travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau with flu-like symptoms to undergo voluntary pathogen testing.
The pathogen testing can detect 17 types of viruses and four types of bacteria in the respiratory tract, including influenza viruses, COVID-19 strains, rhinoviruses, Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria, adenoviruses and human metapneumovirus.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) and CDC Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) yesterday visited Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to oversee the fever screening and respiratory pathogen testing operations at the quarantine station.
Hsueh said 52 travelers who arrived from China, Hong Kong or Macau received the respiratory pathogen testing between Sunday last week and Thursday, with 34 people testing positive for one of the five screened viruses.
Most of them had influenza viruses, followed by COVID-19 viruses, while the Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria many people have concerns over was not detected, he said.
The CDC’s data show that of the 34 cases, 20 (58.8 percent) had flu viruses, eight (23.5 percent) had COVID-19, three (8.8 percent) had adenoviruses, two (5.9 percent) had rhinoviruses and one (2.9 percent) a parainfluenza virus.
There have always been Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections in Taiwan, with ups and downs in case numbers each year, but it has not led to an epidemic outbreak, Hsueh said, adding that as the incubation period for Mycoplasma pneumoniae can be long, if travelers get infected and were not detected at quarantine stations, it would be difficult to tell if they are imported or local cases after they develop symptoms and are diagnosed with the bacteria.
However, he said the centers would not designate Mycoplasma pneumoniae an imported bacterium that poses a risk of wide-scale epidemic outbreak, as there are no signs of it doing so.
Hsueh said the voluntary testing program was launched to detect if there are new variants or other novel pathogens, because although the Chinese government claims that its surge of respiratory illnesses are caused by known pathogens, the CDC still has concerns and hopes to confirm the claim through testing.
“The voluntary testing program will be shortened or extended according to the outbreak situation in China, but the current plan would be to continue it until the Lunar New Year holiday [in February],” he said. “Because travelers from China are expected to gradually increase before the Lunar New Year.”
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