A new HIV-detection technique has been introduced from the US to help curtail the spread of AIDS, the Department of Health announced earlier this week.
The new technique, known as "HIV-1 anti-gp41 capture assay," can determine whether an HIV carrier has been infected within the last six months, thus allowing medical professionals to track down high-risk people who have come into contact with the carrier, health officials said.
Yang Shih-yang (
According to CDC tallies, 1,593 HIV infection cases were reported in the first half of this year, down slightly from the same period last year when 1,634 cases were recorded.
Nevertheless, Yang said, an in-depth analysis of 807 HIV carriers detected in the past year found that 56.4 percent contracted the virus within the past six months. More worrisome was that 80.2 percent of the newly infected victims were drug addicts.
Yang said that the CDC had launched clean needle projects in several counties and cities in an effort to prevent drug addicts from contracting HIV through sharing needles.
The clean needle project began as a pilot program in Taipei City, Taipei County, Taoyuan County and Tainan County last year.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,