Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials yesterday said the Ebola virus has been largely limited to West Africa and has not reached the eastern part of the continent or Asia, in a bid to reassure the public two days after a Hong Kong woman complained of suspected Ebola symptoms following a trip to Kenya.
“The WHO’s disease surveillance data on the Ebola virus show that the current outbreak of the virus has spread to only four countries — Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria,” CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said. “The woman with the suspected case of Ebola in Hong Kong only went to Kenya, which is in East Africa and outside of the affected areas.”
Hong Kong health authorities have yet to receive any report of cases that meet the criteria for a suspected Ebola infection, and the female traveler tested negative for the virus and was discharged from hospital, Chuang said.
The woman, 39, reportedly suffered fever, dizziness and vomiting after returning home on Monday from Kenya, triggering fears that the Ebola virus might spread to Asia.
WHO statistics show that as of Sunday, a total of 1,323 confirmed cases of Ebola were reported since the outbreak began in West Africa in February, and 729 of those people died.
The Ebola virus has an incubation period of two to 21 days, during which time people infected with the virus are not contagious.
Infection is caused by close contact with the bodily fluids or organs of an infected person and is characterized by sudden onset of high fever, muscle pain and headaches, the agency said. The early symptoms are followed by a sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and bleeding, it said.
“The virus could also cause more severe symptoms, such as liver damage, renal failure, central nervous system lesions and even organ failure. It has a high fatality rate of up to 90 percent,” the centers said, adding that people who die of the disease are still contagious after death and the virus could be caught through direct contact with a corpse or contaminated environment.
In light of the Ebola outbreak, the centers on Monday upgraded its travel notice for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to a level-two alert, urging travelers planning to visit those countries to maintain strict personal hygiene and avoid consumption of or contact with ill or deceased wild animals, particularly monkeys and apes.
“Tourists are also advised to monitor their health within 21 days of visiting the aforementioned areas,” the centers said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) told a Cabinet meeting that the ministry would implement three preventive measures against Ebola.
“The ministry will step up monitoring of the Ebola outbreak and establish a national disease control task force on the disease once a suspected case is reported in the country. Second, the ministry will facilitate communications with the public by publishing disease prevention brochures and setting up a Web site about the virus, and third, we plan to coordinate personnel and resources in a manner sufficient to tackle a pandemic,” Chiu said.
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