Approximately 140,000 of the 430,000 people in Taiwan infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) who have never received treatment refuse to get treated despite knowing that they are infected. The majority of them do not seek treatment because they are misguided in their views about the virus, the national health insurance program as well as the drugs that are used for treatment, effectively forfeiting a second chance on life.
According to a survey conducted by a polling company hired by a pharmaceutical company that polled 180 residents with HCV from northern, central and southern cities and villages in Taiwan, more than 70 percent of them choose not to go to the doctor because they believe that treatment is unnecessary because no symptoms have appeared, while 60 percent say it is because they think they could not afford medical costs, and 55 percent assume that the treatment would not be covered by the national health insurance program. Around 50 percent of the respondents also said that they have not sought treatment because they were worried about the side effects of medication, did not want to spend several years going through treatment or thought that treatment was unlikely to work.
Dai Chia-yen, an attending physician in the Department of Hepatobiliary Medicine at Kaohsiung Medical University’s Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, says that the treatment for HCV typically only takes between 24 and 48 weeks and that the recovery rate is between 77 and 95 percent. The average medical costs for a year of HCV treatment is approximately NT$400,000, he says, adding that the national health insurance program covers the expense, so there is no need to worry about not being able to afford treatment.
Photo: Tang Shih-ming, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者湯世名
Respondents in the survey were 55 years old on average, but 20 percent of them said that they were already too old to receive treatment. National Taiwan University medical professor Chen Pei-jer says that the body’s reaction to treatment is sufficient regardless of age, but says that older people have a lower level of tolerance, which decreases their chances of completing treatment.
HCV was discovered sometime around 1989, Dai says, adding that people who underwent invasive procedures such as surgery, blood transfusions or injections before that time are at the highest risk of having contracted HCV and should get tested as soon as possible instead of waiting for symptoms to appear.
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
Photo: Bloomberg
照片:彭博社
台灣大約有四十三萬名C肝病人從未接受治療,其中十四萬人是已知感染,卻未接受治療,大多是因為對疾病、健保、藥物的觀念錯誤,斷送重獲新生的機會。
根據藥廠委託市調公司調查北、中、南城鄉一百八十位民眾的意見,結果發現有C肝而不去看醫師的人中,有七成以上誤以為沒有症狀就不用治療、六成人覺得自己付不起費用、五成五認為治療沒有健保,擔心藥物副作用、不想治療好幾年、認為治療成功率低的人也有五成。
高醫肝膽胰內科主治醫師戴嘉言表示,其實治療C肝平均只要二十四到四十八週,而且有百分之七十七到百分之九十五的治癒率。此外,平均一個人治療C肝一年的費用約四十萬,但這筆藥費健保有給付,不需要擔心付不起。
受訪民眾平均五十五歲,卻有二成人認為自己年紀大了,不用治療。台灣大學醫學教授陳培哲表示,不論年紀,身體對於治療的反應都是一樣好,只是年紀大的人因為耐受力比較差,能夠完成治療的比例較低。
戴嘉言表示,C肝病毒大約是一九八九年發現的,在這一年以前曾經歷開刀、輸血、注射等侵入性處置的人,都屬於C肝高危險群,一定要主動接受篩檢,千萬不要等到有症狀才治療。
(自由時報記者邱宜君)
Rice is an essential ingredient in Taiwanese cuisine. Many foods are made of rice, adding more variety to our cooking, such as rice cake, or “gui.” Wagui is made by steaming rice flour batter in a bowl. The term “gui” refers to a type of food made from rice, while “wa” refers to a bowl. The pronunciation of “gui” in Taiwanese Hokkien is similar to the word for “nobility” in Chinese, so it is common for people to prepare various types of gui, including wagui, as offerings to the gods or ancestors,. 米是台灣重要的主食,用米製成的食品十分多元,豐富我們的飲食,如米做成的「粿」。粿的意思是米做成的糕點,碗粿是將在來米漿倒入碗中蒸熟,因而得名。粿因為音同「貴」,因此碗粿等粿食常用作供品祭拜神明和祖先。 nobility (n.) 高貴,高尚;貴族 offering (n.) 供品 While Taiwan may not be
Drive-through (or drive-thru) restaurants provide people with the immense convenience of being able to purchase and pick up meals without needing to leave their vehicles. These restaurants have been around for decades, and their success has spawned a number of equally handy services. The drive-through concept originated with the drive-in restaurant, the first of which was established in the US in 1921. Patrons would order and eat the food that was delivered to their cars by workers called “carhops.” Ten years later, a drive-through service was introduced, but it was not until 1947 that the first exclusively drive-through restaurant opened its
On Tuesday last week, the flame for this summer’s Paris Olympics was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony. It will then be carried through Greece for more than 5,000km before being handed over to French organizers at the Athens venue used for the first modern Olympics in 1896. The pageantry at Olympia has been an essential part of every Olympics for nearly 90 years since the Games in Berlin. It’s meant to provide an ineluctable link between the modern event and the ancient Greek original on which it was initially modelled. Once
A: “Forbes” magazine just revealed Hollywood’s top 10 highest-paid stars of 2023. B: How much did those superstars make last year? A: Denzel Washington was at No. 10, having made US$24 million, which is about NT$771 million. B: That’s an astronomical figure to me. A: No. 9 to No. 6 were: Ben Affleck with US$38 million, Jason Statham with US$41 million, Leonardo DiCaprio with US$41 million, and Jennifer Aniston with US$42 million. A: 《富比世》最近公布了好萊塢去年的片酬排行榜。 B: 大明星的片酬到底有多高? A: 第10名是丹佐華盛頓、片酬2400萬美元,大約7.7億台幣。 B: 天啊這根本是天文數字! A: 第9到6名是︰班艾佛列克、3800萬美元,傑森史塔森、4100萬美元,李奧納多狄卡皮歐、4100萬美元,珍妮佛安妮斯頓、4200萬美元。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)