■SARS
Woman gives birth
A woman suspected of having contracted SARS gave birth to a baby boy without complications at Armed Forces Sungshan Hospital in Taipei yesterday. Doctors at the SARS-only hospital said the woman, surnamed Lee, who had been listed as a suspected SARS case because her lungs had signs of opacity, delivered the 2.9kg baby at 1: 30am. "Both the mother and the infant are in good condition," said Huang Fang-yen, chief coordinator of the hospital's SARS treatment operations. Huang said Lee is staying in a quarantine ward while the baby is being kept in an incubator. Both facilities have been equipped with negative pressure ventilation systems. According to Huang, Lee is the first suspected SARS case to have given birth in Taiwan. "There is also no known similar case reported in other parts of the world. We are keeping close tabs on their health conditions," he added.
■ SARS
Thermometers requisitioned
The Ministry of Economic Affairs will requisition ear thermometers from the private sector in support of a national temperature-taking campaign aimed at fighting the spread of SARS, an official said yesterday. The decision was made to support a 10-day nationwide temperature-taking campaign to be launched Sunday during a ministry meeting attended by officials in charge of SARS-related medical resources, the official said. The official added that 24,800 ear thermometers and 80,000 surgical masks will be requisitioned and delivered to all township and borough chiefs' offices around the nation before tomorrow. The MOEA's move followed its announcement Wednesday that exports of thermometers will be suspended from Wednesday until June 10 to ensure an adequate supply of thermometers for domestic use.
■ Foreign aid
Twister victims get help
Taiwan has donated US$50,000 in relief funds for the victims of tornadoes that devastated some areas of Tennessee earlier this month. The donation was presented May 21 by T. C. Tien, director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta, and was accepted by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. Taiwan and Tennessee established "sister state" relations in 1980. Tien said during a brief meeting with Bredesen that the donation is a token of love for the people of Tennessee.
■ Culture
German works to arrive
The National Palace Museum in Taipei will display 19th-century German masterpieces from five museums in Berlin next year as part of a reciprocal agreement. Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝), director of the National Palace Museum, and Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, signed an agreement Wednesday at the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) in Berlin to co-sponsor the exhibition. From May 1 to Aug. 1 next year, five museums in Berlin will lend 180 works including paintings, drawings, prints and articles of skilled craftsmanship featuring classicism and neomodernism in 19th-century Germany. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Lehmann said that starting July 18, 400 masterpieces of ancient Chinese art from the National Palace Museum will be on display in Germany. Titled "Treasures of the Sons of Heaven: The Imperial Collection from the National Palace Museum, Taipei."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching