In preparation for World AIDS Day today, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) yesterday called on the public to join the fight against AIDS by not discriminating against AIDS patients.
The WHO has declared Dec. 1 World AIDS Day in a bid to bring public attention to the global AIDS epidemic, a disease that affects 30 million people worldwide.
At a press conference held by the Centers for Disease Control yesterday to promote a series of events in association with World AIDS Day, Yeh said the slogan for this year’s World AIDS Day is “Take the lead. Stop AIDS. Keep the promise.”
PHOTO: AP
He said that the “lead” did not mean only world leaders or government officials.
“Everyone can lead. Everyone can contribute,” said Yeh, urging the public not to discriminate against AIDS sufferers, but instead to face the disease with a positive attitude.
Siew, also invited to speak at the event, said he hopes the public will show AIDS victims love and care instead of discrimination.
“[Last year,] 2 million people in the world died of AIDS ... and 2.5 million people discovered they were HIV-positive,” Siew said. “This is not a crisis for one country, it is everywhere in the world — all countries should be involved in the effort to counter AIDS. If we devote care to the fight against AIDS, then I’m confident that we can stop the spread of the disease.”
Siew recalled that when he went to visit Haiti and Swaziland during his term as premier, the AIDS problem there was unsettling.
“The life expectancy [of people in Swaziland] is only about 37, 38, and almost half the population has AIDS,” he said. “It has become a global concern.”
“[In Swaziland,] only one out of every five people with AIDS receives basic medical care. Of this group, only 31 percent are treated for AIDS,” he added.
Siew stressed that AIDS prevention is one of the most critical global health issues. In addition to devoting care to AIDS patients and not discriminating against them, there is also a need to protect their human rights, he said, adding that Taiwan is one of the few countries that provides free medical care to those with AIDS.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not