The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will perform a drill at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport designed to intercept the arrival of travelers suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus, a senior official said yesterday.
The agency’s emergency response task force, set up specifically to handle a possible Ebola outbreak, is set to conduct the drill today, CDC Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said.
The drill will include taking suspected Ebola-infected travelers to local hospitals, as well as measures to produce printed materials at short notice for distribution to hospitals and clinics warning the public of the Ebola threat, the agency said.
Chou said the CDC will continue to distribute information on preventing the spread of Ebola to inbound travelers from areas affected by the virus in west Africa, keep in touch with a liaison set up according to international health regulations, and get first-hand quarantine data released by the WHO and other countries.
Although only about 1,200 people travel to Taiwan from west Africa each year, about 82,400 people travel between China and Africa each month, Chou said.
In addition, more than 10,000 people from China, Philippines and India are working and living in west Africa, Chou said, describing travelers, workers and immigrants as a potential risk for the introduction of Ebola into Taiwan.
Chou said the agency has launched a third-degree travel alert, coded “Warning,” for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, advising people to avoid going to the three nations unless absolutely necessary, while giving a second-degree alert for Liberia, suggesting that people traveling to that country take precautions and avoid contact with people who are possibly infected.
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:
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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