Experts from Europe, the US and Asia invited by the Central Epidemic Command Center to an international conference on rabies in Taipei last week shared disease prevention experiences and offered advice on oral vaccine distribution evaluation, post-exposure prophylaxis for people who have had contact with bats, measures for repeated exposure and rabies-infected organ transplants.
WHO specialists, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experts on rabies, US Department of Agriculture experts, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control’s director for Asia, as well as Chinese virologists attended the conference on Friday and were invited to visit the Animal Health Research Institute on Saturday for further discussion.
The experts recommended that further research be undertaken on how the rabies virus strains found in Taiwan had evolved and how virulent they are.
The habitat and distribution of ferret-badgers and risk assessment for contact between ferret-badgers and other animals and between with humans should also be investigated, they said.
The center said the specialists advised in relation to bats, the most conservative prevention measure should be taken. People who have been bitten or scratched by a bat should receive post-exposure vaccines.
Booster doses for people who have bitten or scratched again after receiving post-exposure prophylaxis regimen, it was recommended that the WHO guide be followed, which advises that two booster doses be administered, regardless of the number of antibodies present.
In relation to the case reported recently of the transmission of virus from a rabies-infected organ donor, the visiting experts said chance of such an occurrence is extremely low, however, the history of animal contact of donors with suspected encephalitis should be investigated and specimens be kept for further testing, according to the center.
They also said the US CDC guide can also be followed, which recommends that the risk of organ transplantation be explained to organ receivers and a consent form be signed.
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
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
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