Steve Kuo (郭旭崧), the director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), returned from a WHO bird flu conference held in Geneva yesterday and said that the large scale precautionary measures that Taiwan has been taking against avian flu over the last few months are not an overreaction.
"If anything, many countries believe that they are not well enough prepared," he said.
Kuo said that most countries were placing the focus of their defense strategies on making a vaccine.
"However, making a vaccine won't be that easy. By the time there is a case of person-to-person transmission the virus will have mutated," he said.
He said that to successfully produce a vaccine, it would first be necessary to obtain the virus seed of the strain found in person-to-person transmission, with the critical point being "early detection" of the first case of human-to-human transmission.
Once the WHO have the virus seed, they could then distribute it to appropriate countries with the capacity and capability to produce a vaccine.
On the Tamiflu front, he said that some nations had expressed doubts over whether Taiwan could make a generic version of the drug -- which has proven effective against the flu, but that he was confident that Taiwan could do so.
He added that the WHO planned to hold regional bird-flu drills around the world and that Taiwan hoped to be a participant.
Kuo said the government sought to protect all those living in Taiwan, including the 400,000 or so foreigners in the country, and that when and if a call center for an avian-flu pandemic became necessary, there would be an English-speaking service available.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
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