Two thousand hospitals and clinics are expected to join in a nationwide campaign to help people quit smoking that will be launched on March 1, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.
About 180,000 people are expected to take advantage of the program, which will translate into 45,000 smokers quitting the habit, given an expected success rate of 25 percent, Bureau of Health Promotion Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said.
Success is counted if someone remains smoke-free six months after the end of the program.
The program is a sound investment by the government because smokers’ health will improve and it will also help prevent their family members from suffering the effects of secondhand smoke, she said.
If one smoker is reckoned to create social costs of NT$420,000 (US$14,240) because of the addiction, the program will generate long-term savings of NT$19 billion in terms of medical and care costs, Chiou said.
According to the bureau, the longest treatment period will last eight weeks and each smoker will be allowed a second try at the program in the event of relapse. The participants will need to cover some of the costs of the program, to a maximum of NT$200, she said, but added that smokers from low-income families could participate free of charge.
According to the DOH, more than 18,000 people are killed nationwide by tobacco use each year and 33.5 percent of men in Taiwan smoke, a figure about 1.6 times higher than in the US.
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:
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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