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Basic Human Rights and the Epidemic Prevention Measure of the Dengue Fever

As early as in 1915, 1931 and 1942, there were serious outbreaks of dengue fever occurred to the entire island of Taiwan. In 1942, there were five million people in the whole Taiwan infected with dengue fever. After the significant outbreaks of dengue fever in the entire Kaohsiung District of Taiwan Island in 1987 and 1988, except that the regional epidemics occurred in three places of Northern and Central Taiwan, namely Jhonghe City of Taipei County, Taichung City and Taipei City, all other regional outbreaks of dengue fever mostly occurred in Kaohsiung County or City, Tainan City and Pingtung County. Apparently, the epidemic situation of dengue fever has become an epidemic disease of Southern Taiwan, and gradually developed as a ¡§community disease¡¨ or ¡§environmental disease.¡¨
Coincidently, the year of 2006 was a peak period for the propagation of dengue fever. Under the circumstances that the number of dengue fever patients was getting higher and higher, both the government and the competent authorities took compulsory measures or epidemic prevention acts (such administrative acts as insecticide spraying against mosquitoes in residences after forceful unlocking of doors, emergency public spraying of chemicals against mosquitoes, taking blood tests, and so on). It seemed so obvious that the liberty of living, liberty of property and personal liberty, which are the basic rights of civilians under the protection of the Constitution, were involved. Besides, whenever dengue fever is epidemic, it is common to see conflicts (arguments) over the door unlocking and insecticide spraying problems frequently happened between the citizens and the government departments concerned. In the legal aspect, it is necessary to review whether these acts comply with the provisions of the Constitution.
Apart from collecting the related local and foreign literatures to investigate the change of the administrative system of epidemic control, the study introduces the details of the three major directions in taking epidemic prevention measures against dengue fever in Taiwan, including such administrative and management acts as the preventive measures to be taken during the ordinary days, the epidemic control measures after receiving the report of dengue fever cases, and the epidemic prevention measures after the confirmation of dengue fever cases. In addition, regarding the various compulsory epidemic control measures taken by the health administrative authorities, such as the problems of forceful unlocking of doors for intrusion of residences, forceful (emergency) spraying of insecticide, and the compensation for the loss of property rights after the death of real estate owners¡¦ animals or plants caused by the chemical spraying, etc., the study reviews the reference of laws and the proper legal procedures to be complied with. It includes the theories and principles of the Constitution that Taiwan government should comply with.
Although the paper encounters limitations in the studying process, it is still hoped that from the limited literatures with limited information, major directions can be found out as a reference for the competent authorities or scholars to improve or solve the abovementioned problems in the later days. It is also expected that the later researchers can have further understanding of the implementation or practical aspects of the epidemic prevention measures of dengue fever, and finally achieve in-depth development and breakthrough in the studies of the solutions.
Keywords: dengue fever, basic human rights, epidemic prevention measures

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0817107-020310
Date17 August 2007
CreatorsLi, Yu-min
ContributorsLi-Ming Yao, Daw-Yih Jang, Chih-Chung Huang
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0817107-020310
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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