Three aggressive macaques that attacked 10 visitors to Yushan National Park over the weekend were captured and sent to the Department of Agriculture on Monday to be placed under observation for possible rabies infection, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
The three macaques — a female and two males — reportedly attacked a total of 10 visitors in the park’s Tataka Recreation Ground on Saturday and Sunday.
The centers reported that eight of the 10 visitors who were bitten by the macaques have since received rabies vaccine, while two had declined to be vaccinated.
Photo: courtesy of the Yushan National Park Administrative Office
All of the injured visitors will continue to be monitored, the centers added.
Chen Chen-chih (陳貞志), a researcher at National Pingtung University’s Institute of Wildlife Conservation, who assisted in the capture of the animals, said the macaques so far have not displayed any symptoms that would indicate that they have rabies.
“However, since they are wild animals and have attacked people, they have to be put under quarantined observation for at least 10 days,” he said.
While the three need to be further tested and observed to determine whether they have been infected with rabies, it was found that the captured female exhibited symptoms of herpes B virus infection such as blisters in its mouth.
The 10 injured people have been advised by the centers to receive anti-herpes drugs if deemed necessary by a clinical physician.
The centers said that herpes B virus infects a broad range of mammals including monkeys and humans, and can damage the central nervous system.
Human infections with the virus are mostly caused by scratches or bites from infected monkeys, the centers said, adding that symptoms include acute fever, headache, skin lesions and neurological symptoms.
Reported cases of herpes B virus infection in humans are extremely rare.
There have been 40 reported cases of herpes B infection in humans globally, the centers said, adding that infection of the virus in humans can be fatal, as the mortality rate is above 70 percent if the infected person fails to receive proper treatment.
The centers said that the best infection prevention strategy is to avoid being close to, playing with or feeding monkeys.
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