The Department of Health's Center for Disease Control yesterday confirmed that Taiwan's first locally contracted case of malaria in 38 years originated abroad, and expressed confidence the disease would be successfully contained.

"As long as we can control the originally infected group, we will be able to prevent the disease from spreading further," said Shih Wen-yi, deputy director-general of the CDC.

After investigating the case of a 57-year-old malaria patient surnamed Lin for more than 24 hours, the CDC believed he contracted the disease through an anopheles minimus mosquito bite from his nephew surnamed Hsieh, who lives nearby in Tamali, Taitung County in southeastern Taiwan.

The 32-year-old nephew was diagnosed with the disease while working as a lumberjack in the Solomon Islands.

But after returning from the Solomons on June 23, local Taitung medical centers and hospitals failed to properly diagnose Hsieh's condition because he was taking medicine intermittently, Shih said.

Because the incubation period for the disease ranges from 11 to 28 days, CDC officials are investigating the places Hsieh visited over the past month. They indicated, however, that none of the malaria-transmitting species of mosquito caught in Hsieh's neighborhood carried the parasite that causes malaria.

Lin has been receiving treatment for the disease in the Mackay Memorial Hospital since symptoms first emerged last Tuesday, and Lin was hospitalized and placed in a special quarantine ward in the past 48 hours.

CDC officials said yesterday that the agency would continue to monitor the two patients' blood samples for one year.

According to the CDC, its Taitung branch collected 57 blood samples from 195 local citizens for further investigation, and disinfected 90 houses in the neighborhood. Furthermore, the county's health center was contacting people in the neighborhood who had run fevers in the past two weeks.

Although the World Health Organization declared Taiwan to be malaria-free in 1965, 38 cases on average are reported annually on the island, but they have always been contracted abroad. What alarmed CDC officials about Lin's case is that he had never been off the island.

The anopheles minimus, the malaria-transmitting mosquito species, is found in 19 towns located in Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Taitung, and Hualien counties. Symptoms of the disease include fever, headaches, chills, and nausea.

The disease is believed to have originated in Africa and accompanied human migration to the Mediterranean shores, India and Southeast Asia. It is estimated to cause three million deaths annually, one million of which are children.

Currently, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines are on the list of malaria infected areas.

The CDC is currently providing medications Chloroquine and Mefloquine free of charge to those who are traveling to malaria-infected nations.