The Department of Health's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) urged the public yesterday to maintain personal hygiene to avoid being infected with conjunctivitis, commonly known as pinkeye.
Responding to newspaper reports yesterday that pinkeye has spread rapidly nationwide, particularly in Keelung and Yunlin County, CDC Deputy Director-General Shih Wen-yi (
Shih said that since the conjunctivitis outbreak has not been declared an epidemic, the CDC is unable to determine exactly how many people in the country have been infected. However, he added that the center has been told by hospitals that the number of pinkeye patients has increased rapidly over the past few days.
Shih further said that the center had already contacted the Ministry of Education and epidemiologists to work out measures to cope with the situation. Hospitals under the direct jurisdiction of the Department of Health had been instructed to take measures to prevent further spread of the disease, he said.
Noting that the last time that an outbreak of conjunctivitis occurred in Taiwan was in the 1970s and that it was the result of enterovirus type S70, Shih said that this time around the outbreak also seemed to have been caused by enterovirus.
Lu Da-wen (呂大文), director of the the Ophthalmology Department of Tri-Service General Hospital, said that pinkeye is a highly contagious epidemic disease which can be caused by infections (from bacteria and viruses), allergies, or substances that irritate the eyes. Judging from recent cases he has treated, he said he believed the current pinkeye outbreak is related mainly to enterovirus.
Meanwhile, Chiu Hsiao-wen (邱孝文), deputy director of Yunlin County's Bureau of Education, discounted a report in yesterday's China Times that more than 1,000 people in Yunlin have been infected. He said that, as of yesterday morning, the bureau had not been notified by any school in the county of an outbreak of the disease.
Kao Kun-yu (
Kao called for students, particularly young children, and all members of the public to seek medical help if they suspect they have pinkeye -- symptoms of which include inflammation of the conjunctiva, the clear membrane that covers the white part of the eye and the inner surface of the eyelids.
To avoid being infected, Kao said children should be taught to wash their hands often with water and soap. They should also not share eye-droppers, tissues, wash cloths, towels or pillowcases, Kao added.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS