Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) yesterday urged the public to receive the H1N1 vaccine ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays and said the locally produced vaccine is safe.
Less than 30 percent of the population has received the vaccine, Yaung said, adding that public concern is linked to extensive media coverage on side effects such as nausea, vomiting and dizziness.
Yaung made the remarks as he delivered a special report at the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday on the nationwide inoculation program.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
As he spoke, Yaung became visibly upset, at one point throwing down his report on the table in front of him and berating the media for blowing side effects out of proportion — in violation of journalistic ethics.
“We expect the media to uphold [certain] standards and ethics,” he said.
He then said to journalists present at the meeting: “Reporters, I’m sorry, but for the sake of protecting [the health of] citizens, I had to say this ... I also hope the [KMT] chairman and the committee members will excuse me.”
Yaung was answered with a round of applause, including from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was present as KMT chairman.
The government launched a national immunization program on Nov. 1. So far, 5.6 million people have been vaccinated, accounting for 24 percent of the population.
From Feb. 1 to Feb. 13, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will set up vaccination stations at four airports in Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung to encourage travelers who hold Republic of China passports, residency permits or working permits to receive the vaccine free of charge.
The stations will offer a choice of either the locally produced or Swiss-made H1N1 vaccine.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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