Eight hospitals around the nation have opened clinics for travelers, taking over duties performed by the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) travelers' clinic.
CDC Deputy Director Lin Ting (林頂) said that the center's travel clinic will cease operations next Friday as the center cooperates with hospitals to provide the necessary medical care for those about to travel abroad.
"We have not been able to provide comprehensive medical service for those wishing to travel [abroad] because we are confined to providing only services that relate to disease control," he said. "However, there are many other potential medical needs for travelers, especially those traveling while afflicted with chronic diseases."
The recently opened Training Center for Travel Medicine at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) is one of the eight travel medicine clinics co-sponsored by the CDC that Lin said he hopes will be able to provide "one-stop service" for travelers' medical needs. The center is operated by the general medicine department of the hospital.
"General practitioners are well-suited to this area of medicine because they pay attention to every aspect of the patient's well-being," said Department of Health Minister Hou Sheng-mou (
Of the eight clinics, the training center will be the only one that will conduct research into travel medicine and train medical professionals on how to better serve patients who are leaving the country or have just returned.
"Infectious diseases that have been eradicated in this country -- such as malaria, yellow fever and some forms of infectious encephalitis -- are one concern because they may still be common in some countries," said Huang Kuo-chin (
Other hospitals around the country provide travel clinics that are not yet a part of the NT$5 million (US$150,000) CDC project and may be included if they can meet CDC standards, Lin said.
"Obviously, the more clinics we have, the more travelers we can serve," Lin said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS