The head of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control is calling on hospitals to avoid over-reacting to suspected cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
CDC Director-General Kuo Hsu-Sung said Monday that while he understands hospitals’ vigilance, an excessive response to suspected cases could impact ordinary medical treatment and emergency services.
Kuo’s remarks come after a suspected case of MERS at a hospital in Hualien proved to be a false alarm. The CDC and Taiwan’s foreign ministry recently issued travel warnings for parts of nearby South Korea, where 84 cases of MERS have been reported.
Kuo said that the World Health Organization recommends using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to test for MERS. He said that the technique can determine whether a patient has MERS in four to twelve hours.
Kuo also said that MERS cases in South Korea remain confined to hospital wards. He said that if the outbreak of MERS begins to spread outside of hospitals, Taiwan will raise the level of travel alerts for the country.