The risk of importing dengue fever into Taiwan continues to increase. Recently, a total of 6 clusters of 13 imported dengue cases have been reported in Taiwan. The origins of infection respectively are Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia, and 2 clusters originated from each of these 3 countries. The imported cases traveled abroad during July 2 and August 4, 2016 for tourism, visiting relatives and voluntary work. To minimize the impact of imported dengue cases on local outbreaks, health authorities have implemented various prevention measures upon receiving the notifications of the cases, including cleaning of vector breeding sites, investigating the mosquito population density around the cases’ residences, monitoring and following up on the cases’ close contacts, and providing the public with relevant health education.

Last week, a total of 16 imported dengue cases were reported, reaching a new record high in a single week this year. As of August 7, 2016, a cumulative total of 183 imported dengue cases have been confirmed in Taiwan thus far this year, and they were mostly from Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia and Malaysia. During July 31 and August 6, the average number of days between the symptom onset date and the date of report notification to the health authority is 2.3.

When compared to the number of imported dengue cases reported this summer, the number of indigenous case reported this summer is merely 3, which is significantly less than what were reported in the last two years. 763 indigenous cases were reported during last summer and 639 indigenous cases were reported during the summer before last year. The decline could have been a result of active implementation of various prevention and control measures that started earlier this year.　To strengthen primary care, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) began loosening restrictions on the use of dengue NS1 rapid test and improve the online reporting capacity of primary care clinics. Further, Taiwan’s new administration is actively promoting the “New Southward Policy” that aims to further encourage more trade and exchanges between Southeast Asia nations and Taiwan. In light of frequent international exchanges, the risk of importing infectious diseases into Taiwan is elevated. Therefore, to protect the people in Taiwan from the threat of infectious diseases, besides closely monitoring international outbreaks, Taiwan CDC is committed to reducing cross‐border disease spread and containing outbreaks at their source.

According to the international disease surveillance data, several countries in Southeast Asia have continued to report an increasing or rather high level of dengue activity. Taiwan CDC urges travelers planning to visit areas affected by vector-borne diseases to take precautions against mosquito bites such as wearing light-colored clothing, long sleeves and long pants, applying officially approved mosquito repellent to exposed parts of the body, staying at accommodations installed with window screens, screen doors or air conditioners. If symptoms such as fever, headache, retroorbital pain, myalgia, arthralgia, and rash develop, please seek immediate medical attention and inform the doctor of any relevant medical history, recent travel history and activity to facilitate prompt diagnosis, case reporting and subsequent implementation of prevention measures. For more information, please visit the Taiwan CDC website at http://www.cdc.gov.tw or call the toll-free Communicable Disease Reporting and Consultation Hotline, 1922 (or 0800-001922).