Doctors urged people to take necessary vaccines and to observe all notes and suggestions regarding travel and attire in jungles, adding that people should visit medical facilities if they find wounds or bug bites after returning from abroad.
Mackay Memorial Hospital Department of Oral Medicine Doctor Liu Chung-chi (劉崇基) yesterday said his department recently received a patient, a 33-year-old man surnamed Chen (陳), who complained about worsening pain in his lips.
Chen said that he had visited Machu Picchu in Peru and stayed at a local hostel in the jungle region in October last year.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
Discovering a small wound on his lips in November last year, he said he visited a dermatology clinic after the wound had failed to heal after two weeks.
Chen exhibited a minor condition of papules near the wound, which resembled an insect bite, which was initially diagnosed as herpes, Liu said.
However, upon further assesment, it was evident that three wounds had failed to heal and showed signs of “movement” within, resulting in a changed diagnosis of being infested with a form of larvae, he said.
Liu said he tried to remove the larvae without anesthetics, but Chen could not bear the pain.
Liu said he then arranged for Chen to undergo general anesthesia and removed the larvae after 15 minutes of surgery.
The larvae were sent to the lab and National Taiwan University Department of Entomology Professor Hsia Hsu-feng (蕭旭鋒) confirmed that it was the larvae of the Gasterophilus intestinalis, also known as horse botfly.
Liu said the country has only seen two previous cases of horse botfly larvae infestation, both of which were on the scalp, adding that this was both the first recorded incident of larval lip infestation in the country and the first encounter of it in his career.
The larvae had hatched from eggs because Chen’s previous visits to clinics had misdiagnosed the symptoms, Liu said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS