Health authorities in eastern Taitung County asked police on Thursday to search for an HIV-positive Indonesian woman who has been missing since her Taiwanese husband died of AIDS earlier this month.
Officials from the Taitung County Bureau of Health said they have learned that the woman, identified only by her surname Teng, and her husband, identified as Tseng, were HIV carriers after receiving notice from National Taiwan University (NTU) Hospital about a month ago.
"The couple were placed on a `watch' list. We regret that the woman ran away after her husband's death earlier this month," said a county health official.
According to Tseng's daughter, Tseng married the Indonesian woman five years ago. At that time, the woman was known by the surname of Yang. But two years later, she went to the population registration office to have her surname changed to Teng.
Tseng's daughter said only her father and stepmother lived in Taitung, while she and her brother reside in Taipei. When her father fell ill this spring, she said her stepmother prevented her from taking her father to Taipei to see a doctor.
She managed to take her father to NTU Hospital in mid-August when her father's health deteriorated further. A thorough health checkup at the hospital confirmed that Tseng was infected with the HIV virus.
Only when the hospital asked Teng to undergo a similar test did she admit that she had contracted the virus before coming to Taiwan from her home country.
Teng is suspected of having entered Taiwan on a forged passport, health officials said.
According to the country's law governing AIDS prevention and control, HIV carriers who knowingly pass the virus to other people face a prison term of up to seven years.
Also see editorial:
Editorial: AIDS? Not in my apartment block
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai