Focus Taiwan
Date: 02/10/2020
By: William Yen

Taipei, Feb. 10 (CNA) A department director at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) has advised Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) to apply stricter standards when determining whether a patient has signs of a fever, in the wake of the spread of the coronavirus which has been declared a global public heath emergency.

Su Ta-chen (蘇大成), Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine director, said at a press conference held in Taipei on Monday the CECC should update the traditional measurement of 38 degrees Celsius used by most health units around Taiwan to 37.4 degrees.

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) causes fever in around 99 percent of the people that catch it, including 20 percent of patients whose body temperature ranges from 37.3-38 degrees, Su said.

According to literature published in 2017 in the weekly peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ, normal body temperature should be around 36.6 degrees, while another medical paper published in America this year suggested 36.4 degrees, he said.    [FULL  STORY]