The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) and the Department of Health, Kaohsiung City Government will work together to conduct communicable disease surveillance at the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung. As the commander of the Health Command and Coordination Center of the World Games, Lin Ting, Deputy Director of Taiwan CDC will lead fifty experienced members of the Mobile Squad to station at the Health Command and Coordination Center beginning July 15, 2009. The members of the Mobile Squad will be dispatched to the World Games venue and in charge of active surveillance of infectious diseases. The purpose of such surveillance is to detect disease events promptly and ensure a healthy environment for the local and foreign athletes, referees, and audiences.
Taiwan CDC has formulated an enhanced surveillance program for the World Games, which focuses on risk evaluation, monitoring, and prevention of dengue fever, emerging infectious diseases, and H1N1 influenza. To monitor athletes’ health, the Mobile Squad will collect the health status of the athletes and the staff working at the health station of the venue. The Kaohsiung Organizing Committee (KOC) will measure the athletes’ body temperature daily and monitor the athletes’ use of the medical services. The information will be reported regularly to the Health Command and Coordination Center for immediate decision-making and implementation of appropriate preventive measures. To prevent dengue outbreaks, the Mobile Squad will regularly monitor dengue vectors, including larva mosquito and adult mosquito, and their breeding site and report the results to the Health Command and Coordination Center.
In the last few months, the central and local governments have had collaborated successfully in cleaning the breeding sites of the dengue vector. To cope with the pandemic (H1N1) 2009, the central and local governments will have work closely together at the epidemic command center to ensure the World Games can be proceeded smoothly.