Annals of Disaster Medicine
| ISSN:1684-193X
| Updated July 10, 2002
|
Contents:
June 2002 Vol. 1,
Num. 1 | |
Do the Floods Have the
Impacts on Vector-Born Diseases in Taiwan? |
Tzong-Luen Wang, MD, PhD, Hang Chang, MD |
|
Abstract ---To investigate if the Typhoon
Nari that occurred in September 6 2001 had any impacts on communicative diseases
in Taiwan, we surveyed the data from the Epidemiological Bulletins published in
Center for Disease Control (Taiwan) from January 2000 to April 2002. The medians
of confirmed cases for dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and rickettsia were
3, 0 and 14, respectively. The gradual surge of dengue fever was noted since October
2001 and persisted for 7 months. Rickettsia infection had the same tendency and
persisted for even five months. Analysis of the run charts revealed that there
were no endemic episodes of Japanese encephalitis after Nari. For dengue fever,
there were two surges; that is, one being the period from August 2000 to November
2000, the other being the period from October 2001 to April 2002. According to
the analysis of the curve, the latter surge was statistically significant. There
were also two surges over the observation period for rickettsia infection. The
first one was during May 2000 to January 2001, whereas the second one during November
2001 to March 2002. However, neither of the surges met the criteria of significance.
In conclusion, the floods due to Nari actually brought the endemic outbreaks of
dengue fever. Vector control remains an important issue for post-flood disease
surveillance. (Ann. Disaster Med 2002;1:43-50) | Key
words---Floods; Vector; Epidemiology | |
|