Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/22
By: Lung Pei-ning and S.C. Chang
Taipei, Feb. 22 (CNA) Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare called a
CDC’s Chou Jih-haw (left, CNA file photo)
meeting Monday to require local health authorities to complete drills by the end of this month on preventing the infection of Zika virus, a mosquito-born disease that is hitting Central and Southern American countries.
The meeting was chaired by Kuo Hsu-sung (郭旭崧), commanding officer of the Zika Virus Infection Control Center, and attended by officials from six infectious disease control networks and 22 cities and counties across the nation, according to Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), deputy director general of the ministry’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Chou quoted Kuo as issuing an order to local health officials that they finish a round of exercise by the end of this month that will see designated hospitals properly deal with the scenario of having a first case of a patient who has tested positive for having contracted Zika virus.
While ordinary people will not show violent symptoms after contracting the disease, infected pregnant women might give birth to babies with microcephaly or “smaller than usual heads,” so health officials should make extra efforts to alert pregnant women, Chou said. [FULL STORY]
