HEALTH
CDC launches AIDS program
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will open 630 community health stations in all 22 cities and counties around the nation during the two-week period from Nov. 21 to Dec. 4, offering HIV/AIDS and syphilis screening tests and relevant healthcare education, according to a CDC statement released yesterday. The screening program will mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. It is also an expansion of the country’s HIV screening campaign, which has been frustrated by a low testing rate as a result of negative stereotypes about HIV/AIDS, the CDC said. The reluctance of people to take an HIV test often results in the late discovery of the illness, therefore delaying medical treatment and necessary measures to prevent the virus from spreading, the center said. The CDC urged people who have had unprotected sex or shared needles to undergo the free screening tests.
SOCIETY
Youth conference opens
A national conference on child and youth affairs opened in Taipei yesterday, the eve of Universal Children’s Day, in an effort to promote the welfare and rights of Taiwan’s under-18 population. Hosted by the Ministry of the Interior, the two-day event will cover five major topics — family and welfare rights, judicial issues, child health, media content and literacy, and education and employment. The results of each session will be summarized and used as a reference by the government when devising relevant policies, the ministry said. Four regional forums on children’s welfare have been held around the country since July and have drawn the participation of nearly 1,000 people ahead of the two-day national conference, it added.
TOURISM
Fukushima resumes flights
A Taiwanese charter flight arrived at Japan’s Fukushima Airport yesterday, becoming the first international flight to arrive at the airport since the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The TransAsia Airways charter flight, carrying a near--capacity 178 passengers, landed at the airport at 9:50am. The Taiwanese tourists are scheduled to tour Aizu, west of Fukushima Prefecture. The first foreign visitors since the disaster were greeted by a mascot dressed as a Narcissus Flycatcher — a colorful bird that represents Fukushima Prefecture — and prefecture officials who distributed souvenirs to the passengers. The Asahi Shimbun cited 37-year-old passenger Lee Shu-chieh as saying: “Aizu is far from the nuclear power plant and is safe. I’m looking forward to tasting ramen there.”
CRIME
Ministry censured over spy
The Control Yuan on Friday censured the Ministry of National Defense and the Army Command Headquarters for poor supervision of a former general who was given a life sentence for spying for China. said the two agencies failed to detect any illegal activities during the seven-year period when former Army Major General Lo Hsien-che (羅賢哲) spied for China. Lo was given top scores in his annual evaluations and had always passed security clearances since returning to Taiwan, and the Control Yuan blamed the agencies for failing to conduct proper and thorough evaluations and security checks. The ministry lacked tight control over confidential documents, giving Lo an opportunity to gain access to information that he could pass on, the watchdog added.
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