Influenza Outbreaks in a Psychiatric Institution in Eastern Taiwan

Mei-Chu Lee1、Ming-Ching Liu1、Cullen Hsu2、H siu-Fen Chang2、Jiunn-Shyan Julian Wu3

2013 Vol.29 NO.2

Correspondence Author： Mei-Chu Lee

Abstract：

       There are often influenza cases reported every season in Taiwan; especially in autumn and winter, influenza outbreaks reported more frequently. The epidemic period of influenza is mainly from December to March of the next year. In 2012, in the eastern Taiwan, the recorded influenza clusters were nine times higher than that in 2011 from January to July. In 2012, five influenza clusters reported from a specific psychiatric institution in February, April, May and June separately. In the series of these events, one cluster was associated with influenza B virus and the others were associated with influenza A virus. The cases reported were 9, 66, 162, 11 and 119 with the respective attack rate of 8.4%, 61.1%, 22.1%, 22.4% and 56.1%. Moreover, the outbreak period of each event was 6, 11, 44, 9 and 11 days, respectively. After investigation, the main problems of the outbreaks are delay of outbreak reporting, no day-off policy for sick staff, and not good implementation of monitoring and quarantining policy. This paper provides some suggestions on how to reduce influenza outbreaks for high density institutions and psychiatric institutions.