The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday reported its first imported case of tularemia since 2007.
The patient, a 67-year-old US citizen from San Francisco, California, showed symptoms of fever before flying to Taiwan on June 26.
The man was confirmed to have the disease on Monday after being admitted to a Taipei hospital for fever, pneumonia and a build-up of fluid in his lungs, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said in a press release. However, he was expected to be released from the hospital soon.
The CDC said tularemia is a zoonotic disease, meaning it is transmitted from -animals to humans and cannot be transmitted from human to human. The disease is caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis, which is found in various types of fowl, fish, rodents and mammals, which can be spread through bites, inhalation, or direct contact.
There have been reported cases of the zoonosis in North America, Europe, China, Japan, and the former Soviet bloc. Shih warned people traveling to disease-prone areas to avoid touching animals and eating raw, uncooked meat.
The CDC also reported that imported dengue fever is on the rise. A total of 49 people have been infected, most of whom have been to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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