TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) sent a taskforce to Tainan City Friday (July 21) as the number of dengue fever patients nationwide reached 500.
The southern city accounted for 431 of the 520 cases reported for all of Taiwan, the Liberty Times reported. The worst-affected Tainan districts were Rende with 177 cases, East with 133, and Yongkang with 76.
CDC Deputy Director General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) led five working groups to spend the whole day touring the Yongkang district, with visits to local markets and night markets. The fever is still expanding in scale, while having already reached its highest level in almost 10 years for this time of the year.
The aim of Lo’s visit was to inspect prevention measures and to hear the needs of local teams, the CDC said. He was also visiting clinics and a screening station, and talking to city government officials about how to improve their campaign against the spread of the disease.
Tainan has been checking homes and properties for water-logged containers, where vector mosquitoes could be found. Many Aedes aegypti mosquitoes likely to transmit dengue fever inhabit dark, indoor places where they lay eggs and breed larvae.
Outside of Tainan City, Yunlin County reported 67 cases of dengue fever, Kaohsiung City 19, Taichung City two, and Pingtung County one.
