A Taiwanese man who flew to Nanjing, China, via Hong Kong last Saturday while infected with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has yet to be located, an official at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
"We have the full cooperation of disease control officials in China," CDC deputy director Chou Chih-hao (
"The family of the man and his wife claim that they do not know his whereabouts," Chou said. "We are working with local authorities to track down the couple."
This is the nation's first documented violation of the ban against people with MDR and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) flying, Chou said. According to the law, the 55-year-old passenger surnamed Lee (李) can be fined between NT $10,000 and NT $150,000.
not liable
Although the man's wife also suffers from tuberculosis, she is not liable since she has not been shown to be infected with MDR-TB. Those who are in the "open" or infectious stages of common strains of tuberculosis are only banned from flights longer than eight hours.
The restrictions are in place to protect the health of fellow passengers even though the risk of catching the disease from a fellow passenger is slight, Chou said.
A computer system with passenger lists that will automatically index those who are known to be in the actively infectious period of TB will not come online until January next year, Chou said.
"We knew we would face criticism for enacting the ban ahead of the computer system's activation," Chou said, "but we did it because we hope that the ban and the fine alone will stop many -- although obviously not all -- TB patients who should not be flying."
two weeks
The typical tuberculosis patient only needs to take medication for two weeks before the bacteria level in their sputum becomes low enough for the patient to be considered non-infectious, Chou said.
"The process is significantly longer for MDR-TB patients and depends on the individual," Chou said. "XDR-TB patients take the longest of all to pass the `open' or infectious stage."
Those who were on Dragon Air flight KA435 to Hong Kong from Kaohsiung or on flight KA810 to Nanjing last Saturday can phone a special hotline, 1922, for further information. Those who are abroad can call the CDC directly with any queries, Chou said.
Three passengers and several of their family members have already gotten in touch with the CDC, Chu said.
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
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
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,