Experience in Emergency Response to Epidemic of Infectious Disease Related to Climate Change and Natural Disaster-Typhoon Disaster as an Example

Ji-Jia Huang, Hai-Yun Ko, Chia-Ying Wang, Ding-Ping Liu

2012 Vol.28 NO.4

Correspondence Author： Ji-Jia Huang

Abstract：

Several major natural disasters have occurred in this country during the past twenty years. For earthquake events, the most representative was the 921 earthquake in 1999, which have caused enormous damages to this country but allowed the governments to acquire a lot of experience in emergency response to post-disaster infectious disease control. Taiwan lies in the typhoon belt of the western Pacific and is devastated by typhoon in different scale in almost every year. The Typhoon Morakot in 2009 was the one that has caused the most serious injuries and deaths in the meteorological history of Taiwan and has severely destroyed southern Taiwan. The Typhoon Fanapi in 2010 also brought serious flooding and damages to Taiwan. In order to deal with the potential risk of the spread of infectious diseases likely to occur following natural disaster, Taiwan CDC has integrated relevant resources and has established operational procedures for this issue, which include two major parts: pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster response and reconstruction, so that the spread of infectious disease after natural disaster could be effectively prevented.