■ HEALTH
COA downplays food fears
The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday urged the public not to panic over news that South Korean livestock were infected by foot-and-mouth disease, saying no meat liable to be affected by the disease has been imported from South Korea in more than a decade. Taiwan last imported South Korean beef in 1989, and has not imported pork and mutton from there since 1999 and 1997 respectively, the council said. South Korea’s Agriculture Ministry said on Thursday that six cows at a farm about 45km north of Seoul tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease. The disease last hit South Korea in 2002, when 160,000 pigs either died of the disease or were slaughtered to prevent its spread, the ministry said.
■ SAFETY
Gas leaks killed 33 last year
Sixteen people were killed in 33 cases of carbon poisoning reported nationwide last year, statistics released on Thursday by the National Fire Agency (NFA) show. Seventy-five people were injured in the incidents, which were caused by poor air circulation because of improper indoor installation of gas-powered water heaters. The NFA said it would continue to promote a drive to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning that was launched last year. The project provides NT$3,000 subsidies to low-income families who install new water heaters safely. In addition, new laws require sellers of gas water heaters to dispatch qualified technicians to help buyers install them properly.
■ CHARITY
Salvadoran facility opened
A nursing home for seniors built with funds from a Taiwanese charitable group in the US formally opened on Thursday in Cojutepeque, El Salvador. A dedication ceremony on Thursday to mark the home’s opening was attended by Cojutepeque Mayor Rosa Guadalupe Serrano, Taiwan’s Ambassador to El Salvador Carlos Liao (廖世傑) and SimplyHelp president Tina Bow, among others. The housing project is the third of its kind launched in El Salvador by the SimplyHelp foundation, a group formed by Taiwanese expats living in the US that is dedicated to empowering people living in poverty worldwide, an official at Taiwan’s embassy in El Salvador said. The nursing home is expected to house 40 impoverished senior citizens, the official 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,