The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday that it is keeping a close eye on 96 people who came into contact with a Chinese tourist confirmed to be infected with H7N9 avian flu.
One of the 96 people has been fatigued and developed a fever, and is undergoing tests, with the results expected later in the day, the centers said.
Among the others, measures to prevent the spread of the disease have been taken to help 48 of them, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center director Christine Liu (劉定萍) said.
The monitoring of the 96 people — comprising the tourist’s family members, members of the same tour group and passengers who were on the flight the group took to Taiwan — will likely conclude on Wednesday next week, the centers said.
The tourist, who was confirmed on Tuesday as the third imported case of H7N9 in Taiwan, is a 44-year-old woman from Jiangsu Province.
Still in serious condition in an intensive care unit, she had a dry cough and muscle soreness when she arrived in Taiwan and went to a clinic in New Taipei City to be treated the same day.
On Friday, she developed nausea and a fever. On Saturday she went to a hospital. An X-ray showed that she had pneumonia and pleural effusion (in which excess fluid builds up around the lungs).
On Sunday, she was taken to a medical center by her tour group leader and was given Tamiflu. The medical center then notified the CDC of a suspected H7N9 avian flu case.
Other members of the group have continued their planned itinerary and were scheduled to depart today.
Taiwan confirmed its first and second imported H7N9 cases, also from China, on April 24 and Dec. 31 last year.
Since April 3 last year, 576 suspected H7N9 cases have been reported, but only three have been confirmed, with the December case the only fatality. The other 573 suspected cases tested negative.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods