On January 8, 2016, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) for Dengue Outbreak convened the fifteenth meeting. During the meeting, the following was announced: the Executive Yuan decided to deactivate CECC for Dengue Outbreak as dengue activity had slowed down, regular operation mechanism would be adopted for all long-term efforts that address the prevention and control of dengue, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) would establish routine coordination meeting as soon as possible. In addition, the future response plan that focuses on four major strategies, including data-based decision making, elimination and management of vector habitats, timely diagnosis and prompt case reporting, and targeted prevention efforts, was also announced.

The Commander of CECC for Dengue Outbreak, Vice Premier Chang San-cheng (張善政) of the Executive Yuan commended both the Tainan City Government and the Kaohsiung City Government for cooperating with the central government in bringing the outbreaks under control at the earliest opportunity. Although CECC for Dengue Outbreak was deactivated, it did not mean the outbreak would not recur. Hence, the central government would continue to work closely with the local governments to ensure all preparedness efforts are completed before the rainy season. Further, in light of the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday, the Executive Yuan had also instructed the Ministry of Education (MOE) to reinforce the supervision of environmental sanitation and cleanliness on campus and draw up a winter-break dengue prevention and control plan. At the same time, EPA was instructed to conduct irregular inspection. The public was once again urged to cooperate with government policies in order to effectively ward off dengue outbreaks.

For the early warning system to be ready for the era of big data, CECC for Dengue Outbreak also announced the launch of a national dengue prevention and control website: dengue.gov.tw, which collects the latest outbreak information from the community. Moreover, communities are encouraged to voluntarily clean and remove vector breeding sites and penalized when failing to do so in order to lower the frequency of insecticide spraying and ensure community engagement in dengue prevention and control efforts.

The implementation of dengue NS1 rapid test for inbound passengers who are detected with a fever and have a travel history to areas affected by dengue at international airports on January 1, 2016 aims to lower the risk of importing dengue into Taiwan. Among the deaths confirmed during the dengue outbreak last year, 87.6% of them aged 60 and above. Hence, elderly aged 60 and above will be one of the targeted individuals for dengue prevention and control this year. Additionally, the central government has planned to work with both the Tainan City Government and the Kaohsiung City Government to introduce dengue vaccine developed by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Australia’s Eliminate Dengue Program— Wolbachia in order to minimize deaths caused by dengue in the near future.

Concerning the ongoing research projects conducted by the Kaohsiung Medical University’s Dengue Prevention and Control Research Center and the research projects the Ministry of Science of Technology (MOST) requested National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) to conduct, Commander Chang San-cheng (張善政) instructed MOHW, EPA, MOST and the two schools to form steering committees to integrate the research projects together.

On January 7, 2016, a total of additional 14 indigenous dengue cases were confirmed in Kaohsiung City. Dengue activity in Kaohsiung City has decreased for six consecutive weeks. Since this summer, a cumulative total of 43,414 indigenous dengue cases, including 22,760 cases in Tainan City, 19,720 cases in Kaohsiung City, imported and sporadic cases in other cities and counties, and 218 deaths, have been confirmed.