A recent case of Cryptococcus neoformans infection led doctors to call for the public to be mindful of their health and to take special care of patients who have used steroids for a long time, have diabetes or are undergoing dialysis, as they are in a high-risk group prone to infection.
About six months ago, an 18-year-old student complained of pain in her left knee when walking and checked in to the Taipei City Hospital. Doctors diagnosed that she had been infected with the Cryptococcus neoformans fungus in her femur, Huang Ming-che (黃明哲) of the hospital’s orthopedic division said on Friday.
X-rays and nuclear magnetic resonance scans helped doctors to discover that the cortical surface of the student’s femur had been corroded and the tissue around the infection was already collecting interstitial fluid, Huang said.
He added that the hospital had to conduct a pathological examination to determine whether it was a bone neoplasm or an infection.
The results of the examination showed the presence of the Cryptococcus neoformans fungus, Huang said, adding that the condition had been suppressed after treatment with antifungal agents.
If treating the infection had been delayed any longer it would have resulted in severe damage to the femur’s structure and would have left a lingering after-effect of persistent aches, Huang said.
The primary path of infection is from touching or inhaling dirt and air tainted with bird feces — especially that of pigeons — and once the fungus enters the body it can be transmitted to other organs through the circulatory system, Huang said.
Though the patient’s family does not keep any birds or pigeons, there is a pigeon coop close to her home, Huang said, adding that it was possible that she had accidentally come into contact with earth contaminated with pigeon excrement.
Huang said that the patient had suffered from systemic lupus erythematosus seven years ago and had been on steroid therapy for a long time to control the disease.
However, Huang added that the patient’s case was rare, as infection with the fungus usually led to pneumonia or meningitis, both of which could become fatal if left untreated.
Meanwhile, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) doctor Luo Yi-chun (羅一均) said that the Cryptococcus neoformans fungus is ubiquitous. He added that pigeon feces and eucalyptus leaves have a high pH, which is conducive to the fungus’ breeding, and they therefore tend to contain a higher concentration of the fungus.
Luo said that as pigeon excrement incubates the fungus and concentrates it to a high degree, soil contaminated with pigeon feces is more dangerous than normal earth.
Only people with a low resistance to viral infections — such as those suffering from uncontrolled diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, renal failure, or autoimmune diseases like HIV/AIDS — are susceptible to full-body infection, Luo said, adding that the fungus was not medically viewed as a transmittable disease because of the nature of its infections.
CDC deputy director Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said that people should take care to distance themselves from potential sources of contamination and pay attention to personal hygiene, as well as environmental sanitation.
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