The Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday that it would arrange for a runaway patient infected with a virulent form of tuberculosis to obtain treatment.
Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), deputy director-general of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), made the remarks after Lee Chen-chu (李真主), via a lawmaker, expressed a desire to return to hospital to resume treatment.
Taichung Hospital confirmed yesterday that Lee had returned to the hospital, but said that “out of respect for his wishes, it would arrange for him to be transferred to the hospital of his choice.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) said yesterday that she had contacted Lee through a friend of his. Lee promised to resume treatment, asking for an early transfer to another hospital for surgery to remove lesions on his lungs, she said.
The CDC will arrange for Lee, who had previously refused to have the lesions removed, to get proper treatment, Chou said.
“The time and place, however, will not be disclosed,” he said, adding that the CDC will begin an investigation to locate individuals who may have had contact with Lee and arrange for them to have medical examinations if necessary.
Lee, diagnosed with multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), left Taichung Hospital through a fire door on Wednesday night. He had been receiving treatment at the hospital since July.
The DOH was forced to make his identity public since he could become infectious once his treatment had been discontinued.
Lee first made the headlines when he and his wife, who was also suffering from TB at the time, traveled to China via Hong Kong last year in defiance of a travel ban.
The couple was tracked down to a hotel in the northern part of Jiangsu Province and were then escorted back to Taiwan by ship.
They were sent to Taichung Hospital for compulsory treatment in late July.
Since then Lee’s wife has recovered and been discharged from the hospital.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods