離開
進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Taiwan reports first community BA.5 infection
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo, who is the deputy head of the Central Epidemic Command Center’s medical response division, speaks at the center’s daily news conference in Taipei yesterday. Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
By Wu Liang-yi and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA
The Central Epidemic Command Center （CECC） yesterday reported Taiwan’s first community case of the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2.
The woman, who is in her 20s and lives in northern Taiwan, received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and has not been abroad recently, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo （羅一鈞）, deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division.
She initially tested positive for the disease using a rapid test in the middle of May and later recovered, Lo said.
Her parents, who live in the same household, tested positive on July 3 and Tuesday last week, Lo said.
The woman at the time developed a runny nose and tested positive again in rapid and polymerase chain reaction （PCR） tests on Wednesday last week, Lo said.
The CECC initially classified the case as a reinfection and on Wednesday conducted genome sequencing, finding that she was infected with the BA.5 subvariant, he said.
Lo said that the CECC identified seven people with whom she had close contact — two family members living in the same household, four coworkers and a friend.
The two family members have completed isolation, and the others have tested negative using rapid test kits, but are to take additional PCR tests, Lo said.
Over the past two weeks, the center recorded 525 reinfections, but the woman was the first found to be infected with BA.5, Lo said.
The CECC has asked the eight laboratories conducting genome sequencing on its behalf to step up screenings for local cases of the subvariant, he said.
Lo said international research has shown that the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants might evade the body’s immune response, which could lead to localized spread of the disease.
A WHO report released on Wednesday showed that the number of BA.5 infections was increasing worldwide and that 89 countries had reported cases, Lo said.
It is the dominating subvariant in the US, the UK, France and Germany, and Portugal has reported an increasing number of BA.5 reinfections, Lo said.
Countries in Asia and Oceania have also reported increasing BA.5 case numbers, he added.
Studies showed that people who had the BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants have a 80 percent better immune response to later variants than those who have not had COVID-19, Lo said.
Japanese research showed that those infected with BA.5 have a higher risk of developing severe pneumonia than people who have other variants, he said.
However, existing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments offer sufficient protection from the variant, he added.
Prior to yesterday’s BA.5 case, Taiwan had reported four domestic cases of the subvariant, who were infected while picking up family members at international airports after they returned from overseas.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
