Taiwan reports rare measles cluster

4 months ago

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has reported a rare domestic measles cluster involving two people, after identifying a patient who contracted the disease from the index case at a northern Taiwan hospital.

The new case, a medical worker in his 30s, had been experiencing dizziness, coughing and a rash since Feb 24 before testing positive for the disease on Tuesday, Central News Agency (CNA) cited CDC Deputy Director General Lo Yi-chun as saying on Wednesday.

A total of 306 people have been identified as close contacts of the man, who is being isolated at home, Lo said.

Those contacts included four non-cohabiting family members and 302 others whose activities overlapped with the man’s, Lo said.

As to the index case (the first case in the cluster), a man in his 30s, some additional 100 individuals have been listed as his close contacts after an original 199 contacts were identified as of Feb 19, according to Lo.

Lo said Taiwan has reported three measles cases so far this year -- the two local cases from the hospital cluster, and an imported case involving a foreign national who entered Taiwan on Feb 20 from Malaysia. -Bernama