APEC forum on dengue fever kicks off in Tainan

2018/05/07

An Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on dengue fever management and prevention opened May 3 in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, underscoring the commitment of the government to improving regional health and well-being.
 
 Organized by the Centers for Disease Control under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the two-day event brings together 26 representatives from 10 of the 21 APEC member economies. These are Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam.
 
 CDC Director-general Dr. Chou Jih-haw said at the opening of the event that sharing best practices and the latest technology is key to combating the disease and strengthening the regional health care networks. Taiwan is willing and able to share its related expertise and help keep the Asia-Pacific moving along the path to greater prosperity, he added.
 
 Day One highlights included keynote speeches by Duane Gubler, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in the U.S., and Dr. Stephen Whitehead from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The former focused on global public health and economic threats stemming from diseases transmitted by mosquitos in the genus Aedes, while the latter outlined dengue vaccine developments.
 
 On Day Two, participants will discuss opportunities for predictive outbreak modeling utilizing vector surveillance technology and visit locally headquartered National Mosquito-borne Diseases Control Research Center.
 
 According to the CDC, there were more than 40,000 cases of dengue fever and 228 deaths in 2015. Aggressive government measures centered on strengthening basic control and border inspection procedures slashed the numbers to a 20-year low of 10 and zero last year.

Source: Taiwan Today (https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=15&post=133737)