The indigenous dengue epidemic this year (2025) in Kaohsiung City had 1 more confirmed case in the alert zone today (August 30). The case was a 70+year-old woman in Gushan District. She went to the emergency room due to abdominal pain. After reporting the case, her specimen was taken for examination and confirmed to be PCR positive for DENV-II. It was believed to be the same community cluster infection. The indigenous cluster infections have accumulated 9 cases to date. The epidemic control taskforce has continued the environmental clean-up and sanitation, and totally 1,056 water-holding containers have been found, with 320 of them breeding vector larvae. A total of 96 penalty tickets were issued, showing a still high positive container index. DOH has made an appeal to the public to actively clean up the indoor and outdoor environment, putting “inspection, removal, cleaning, scrubbing” into practice. Medical care institutions are also reminded to stay alert and take the initiative to report cases. All are called to work together to prevent spreading of the disease in the community.
DOH revealed that emergency epidemic control measures were activated in the dengue cluster community in Gushan District upon receiving reports of this year’s indigenous confirmed cases, including extended epidemic investigation and specimen sampling, blanket removal of breeding grounds, spraying of pesticides, and environmental clean-up. The emergency preventive measures were implemented on a total of 2,050 households in 5 days. Since it has been rainy recently, effort has been put into strengthening vector mosquito density survey. It was found that households in the area had piled up plenty of containers and sundries, with the positive container index (PCI) exceeding 30%, and 86 Aedes mosquitoes being captured. In particular, positive containers index was relatively high among canvases, buckets, tires, vases, outdoor sundries, and construction site manholes. The epidemic control taskforce had lawfully requested households to cooperate in cleaning up the environment. The competent authorities had also taken solid actions on inspection and management, penalizing all positive containers found.
DOH statistics showed that medical care institutions in jurisdiction had reported totally 68 cases from August 25 to 29, and cumulatively 445 had been sampled for specimen examination. Since this epidemic broke out in the old settlement, and with the high Breteau index and positive container index, DOH assessed a high risk of epidemic spreading. The public were advised to consult a doctor and do a rapid test as soon as possible if “any one” of the suspected symptoms emerge, including fever, headache, bone or muscle soreness, diarrhea, and skin rashes, and inform the doctor of their place of residence and activity history in order to ensure early diagnosis. In addition, if alarm symptoms of a severe case appear (abdominal pain or tenderness, persistent vomiting, gums or nasal bleeding, drowsiness, restlessness, or changes of consciousness), citizens must visit a hospital for medical consultation without delay.
Moreover, citizens are also reminded to pay particular attention to prevent mosquito bites when traveling to dengue-endemic regions such as Southeast Asia, for example wearing light-color long-sleeve clothes and long pants, applying government-approved mosquito repellent that contains DEET or Picaridin on exposed skin. In case of suspected dengue symptoms after returning home, please visit one of the contracted integrated dengue medical care institutions in the city (https://gov.tw/1g1) as soon as possible for medical consultation.