Southern Taiwan now faces an outbreak of deadly disease, transmitted through mosquito bites.
Dengue fever outbreak in Southern Taiwan, reported thousands of infected patients. Since May, Taiwan seen hundreds of dengue fever cases increased caused by ongoing hot and humid weather. It has believed outbreak hit due to a combination of urbanization, population growth, increased international travel, and global warming.
Dengue has become a global problem since the Second World War and is endemic in more than 110 countries, including southern Taiwan which is now facing dengue fever outbreak. This pattern of dengue transmission in the country begins with importation from Southeast Asia in the early summer. It then spread out through southern Taiwan in autumn season, thus ending in the winter because of cold weather.
Officials reminded people in southern Taiwan to keep their homes free of standing water and to make efforts to avoid mosquito bites in order to prevent spreading deadly disease as dengue ranks as most important mosquito-borne viral disease in the world.
It is transmitted by several species of mosquito with symptoms including fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles. As of now, still no any vaccines to prevent infection with dengue viruses, and the most effective protective measures are those that avoid mosquito bites. Aside from avoiding and eliminating the mosquitoes, research is ongoing on a dengue vaccine as well as medication targeted directly at the virus carried by mosquito.
Taiwan Centers for Disease Control has two dengue surveillance systems, the hospital-based reporting system for infectious recordable diseases and the dengue active surveillance systems which includes individual self-suspected reports. Expanded epidemiological surveys for contacts of confirmed cases by local health bureaus including school and community screening systems for unknown fever.
Taiwan faced dengue fever outbreak of different scales every year recorded since 2006. City in Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung County been reported. Tainan Mayor William Lai together with public health and environmental officials, visited commercial as well as residential areas advising people on ways of preventing further spread of dengue fever and to eliminate mosquito carrying disease. IMAGE/ Tom Ervin/Getty Images