CDC sends dengue team to Kaohsiung hospital

• By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

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The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said it on Friday established a mobile dengue prevention team led by Deputy Director-General Lin Min-cheng (林明誠) in Kaohsiung, after a cluster of six were reported at a hospital.

The Kaohsiung Department of Health on Friday reported five locally acquired cases of dengue fever, all hospitalized patients at Kaohsiung Municipal Min-Sheng Hospital.

CDC spokeswoman Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) said the dengue fever cluster is the first hospital cluster since 2018.

Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung City Government via CNA

The first diagnosed person was a 78-year-old woman who had been hospitalized from May 29 to Wednesday last week, and she tested positive for dengue serotype 2 when she was readmitted on Thursday last week, the CDC said.

The department on Sunday reported the sixth confirmed case, also saying that 92 of 96 close contacts with the highest infection risk tested negative, while four were overseas, but had no symptoms and would be tested later.

A total of 1,132 people at risk tested negative, so it is likely that the outbreak did not spread further, it said.

The CDC said it established a mobile dengue prevention team, and they arrived at the hospital to provide guidance in dengue prevention and clinical management, and mosquito control suggestions.

Now is a critical time for controlling the outbreak at the hospital, and careful monitoring is crucial, the CDC quoted Lin as saying.

He also commended the Kaohsiung City Government’s contact tracing efforts, saying that it that found the index case had been hospitalized during the incubation period and quickly initiated hospital-wide inspections, environmental cleanup and emergency insecticide spraying, according to the CDC.

Dengue testing was expanded to include staff in the areas near the cluster, recent inpatients and patients, and the city government also contributed to dengue prevention and control efforts, it said.

The cluster is to be monitored until July 12, it said.

Recent warm and humid weather creates optimal conditions for dengue transmission, and people should “inspect, dump, clean and scrub” routinely to eliminate standing water and mosquito breeding sites around living spaces, the CDC said.

They should also wear loose and light-colored long sleeves, and use government-approved insect repellents to avoid mosquito bites, it added.