The number of A(H1N1) influenza infections in Taiwan has been rising in recent few weeks, but the situation is not expected to escalate into a full outbreak, health experts said.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Lin Ting (林頂) said yesterday that 43 percent of flu cases reported in the past three months were caused by the A(H1N1) virus, 33 percent by the A/H3 virus and 23 percent by the influenza B virus.
The ratios have changed, he noted, saying that in the past, 80 percent of flu infections in the country were caused by the A/H3 virus.
The CDC thinks the shift is not a big problem, but is worried that pre-school children could be hit by the current wave of A(H1N1) as less than half have been inoculated against the virus since a national A(H1N1) vaccination program was launched in October, Lin said.
Pediatrician Chen Chih-jung (陳志榮) at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital said he does not expect a major outbreak of H1N1 infections this year.
More than 800 people in Taiwan were hospitalized with A(H1N1) symptoms last year of whom 35 died.
Since then, about a third of the population has acquired immunity to the A(H1N1) flu virus, either through vaccination or infection, Chen said.
Meanwhile, in other news, according to a report by the Philips Center for Health and Well-being, Taiwan is among the developed nations of the world that rank lowest in health and well-being.
The report, which analyzed the responses of more than 31,000 people in 23 countries, showed only 24 percent of people in Taiwan had a positive view of their well-being and state of health, compared with the global average of 62 percent.
According to the report, financial concerns are key stress factors for Taiwanese, as they are constantly worried about whether they have enough money to pay bills and save for the future.
As a result, Taiwanese have the second highest level of stress among the 23 countries surveyed, the survey found.
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