DOH vigilant for typhoid fever from Indonesia

The DOH's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stipulated that Indonesian workers will have to be tested for typhoid fever as part of their regular health check-up after having worked in Taiwan for six months, beginning April 15.

The CDC had previously required as of Oct. 15, 2009 that a typhoid fever test be added to the standard health exam given Indonesian workers within three days after they arrive in the country.

As of March 5, the new test had discovered two typhoid fever cases, one paratyphoid fever case, and five cases of shigellosis, another intestinal disease also caused by the ingestion of contaminated water.

Typhoid fever outbreaks have been reported in parts of Indonesia since last year, and Taiwan has seen an increase in the number of imported cases of the disease from the country.

CDC Director-General Shih Wen-yih said 60 imported typhoid fever cases, or 94 percent of the total number of imported cases recorded in 2009, originated in Indonesia, a three-fold rise from 2008.

Because foreign workers return home after working in Taiwan for a period of time, raising the possibility of their being infected by typhoid fever, the CDC decided to adopt the new screening measure, Shih said.

Typhoid is a bacterial infection of the intestinal tract, whose symptoms can include sustained fever, headache, abdominal pain, diarrhea, loss of appetite, depressed heart rate, rash, coughing and constipation, Shih said.

He called on employers, foreign labor brokerage firms and Indonesian workers to follow the disease prevention measures.

Of the 170,000 foreign caregivers in Taiwan, about 120,000 are from Indonesia. An average of about 5,000 Indonesian nationals arrive in Taiwan to work per month, according to data compiled by the Council of Labor Affairs.

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