People eligible for government-funded COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations should get them as soon as possible, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said there were 129,831 hospital visits for flu-like illness last week, 10.2 percent higher than the previous week, while viral surveillance data showed that influenza A(H3N2) was the dominant strain, followed by influenza A(H1N1).
The seasonal flu has entered the epidemic period earlier than usual this year and with three long weekends this month, cases might rise due to more gatherings, although students being off campus might mitigate the effect, CDC Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said.
Photo: CNA
It is difficult to predict the peak of the epidemic period, Lo added.
However, as the dominant strain has changed from H1N1 to H3N2, people who had previously contracted the flu can get infected again with another viral strain, he said, urging people to get vaccinated for better protection.
CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) said that government-funded COVID-19 and flu vaccination begins today, with people in the high risk groups eligible for vaccination in two phases.
Also starting today, the criteria for prescribing government-funded antiviral flu medication would be expanded, allowing doctors to prescribe them to some patients without performing a rapid test for flu, Tseng said, adding that the program would run until the end of this month.
In other developments, three new dengue cases in Taoyuan were linked to a previous local case reported the previous week, so they have been designated as a single cluster, while a new case was reported in Yilan County, Lee said.
CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said the three cases in Taoyuan were a man in his 40s who was diagnosed with dengue after he sought treatment for fever and muscle soreness, and a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s who were diagnosed with the disease in expanded testing in nearby communities following confirmation of a previous local case.
In Yilan, a man in his 40s sought treatment at a clinic for symptoms including a runny nose, sneezing and a fever, Lin said.
His symptoms persisted and he developed diarrhea, Lin said, adding that the man was diagnosed with dengue serotype 1 at a hospital five days after the onset of symptoms.
The man did not travel abroad or to Taoyuan or southern Taiwan, where local dengue cases have been reported, so he is considered a local case with an unknown source of infection, Lin said.
The Taoyuan cases were dengue serotype 2, the same as previous local cases in Kaohsiung, but not of the same viral strain, so they are not considered to be linked, Lo said, adding that the cluster in Kaohsiung has ended, as no new cases were reported in the monitoring period that ended on Sunday.
As of Monday, 17 local cases of the mosquito-borne dengue fever had been reported so far this year, with 12 residing in Kaohsiung, four in Taoyuan and one in Yilan, Lee said.
Temperatures are still high, which is favorable for mosquito reproduction, so people should practice the “inspect, dump, wash and scrub” steps by inspecting living environments for standing water, removing standing water, and washing and scrubbing the containers to eliminate mosquito breeding sites, Lo said.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
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