More labs to examine samples of suspected H7N9 cases
Central News Agency
2013/04/24 20:49:03
Taipei, April 24 (CNA) Six laboratories around Taiwan have been recruited by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) this week to examine specimens of suspected H7N9 avian flu cases, CDC Director-General Chang Feng-yee said Tuesday.
He made the remark in response to opposition Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Chao Tien-lin, who said the CDC should let the 30 contracted labs in hospitals around the country process the samples, as it did during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that occurred in 2003.
Chang said during an interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan that there are nine contracted labs in the country, six of which have started sharing the workload of the CDC's own lab.
The CDC uses the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing tool to detect the virus, which takes up to 10 hours. Moreover, as a precautionary measure, an additional 10 hours are required for gene sequence detection, Chang said.
Meanwhile, Fan Liching of the Taiwan Affairs Office under China's State Council, said that as of April 22, China had reported to Taiwan 21 times on epidemic information for H7N9 avian flu, in accordance with a cross-Taiwan Strait agreement on medical and health cooperation.
Also that day, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare decided to categorize H7N9 as a designated communicable disease under the Infectious Diseases Prevention Law, starting from early May.
With the situation intensifying, a World Health Organization official said there is no evidence of human-to-human H7N9 transmission, despite small clusters of cases.
The authorities should nevertheless strengthen monitoring of the virus, said Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general for health security and environment.
He offered the Chinese government several suggestions for controlling the disease, such as finding the sources of human infection, raising the alert, and continuing cooperation with the WHO on sharing information and the wild strain of the H7N9 virus and its gene sequence.
(By Lung Jui-yun, Lawrence Chiu, Yang Ming-chu, Tsai
Su-jung and Nell Shen)
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