The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) announced that this year’s first indigenous dengue case on May 16, 2017. The case traveled to Malaysia during April 15 and 20, developed dengue symptoms on May 5, was tested negative for dengue virus using the dengue NS1 rapid assay on May 9 and re-tested for the second time after the case was reported to the health authority by the hospital on May 10. On May 16, infection with dengue was confirmed in the case.
The number of days between the case’s return to Taiwan and symptom onset is 15, which is one day shorter than the longest incubation period for dengue (14). Although the case’s symptom onset date cannot rule out the possibility of the case being imported, Taiwan CDC still considered it as an indigenous case. However, due to the case’s recent travel to Malaysia during April 15 and 20, Taiwan CDC performed sequence alignment on the case’s specimen and identified the virus strain that infected the case is DEN-2 from Malaysia. In addition, dengue activity in Malaysia has recently begun to increase in early April and none of the family members residing in the same household has developed suspected symptoms. Hence, it is determined that the case is imported.
Last modified at 2017-05-23
Data from Division of Planning and Coordination