As the peak of the influenza season approaches, doctors yesterday urged high-risk groups to get vaccinations against pneumococcal diseases.
National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Division of Cardiology director Hwang Juey-jen (黃瑞仁), who also serves as director-general of the Taiwan Society of Cardiovascular Interventions, said research in 2005 showed that people with chronic heart disease were 6.4 times more likely to be infected with invasive pneumococcal disease than healthy adults.
“If infected, 14 percent of them also suffer from aggravated heart failure symptoms, 7.1 percent from a heart attack and 5.8 percent from an irregular pulse,” Huang told a press conference in Taipei.
Pneumococcal disease is an infection caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, which can lead to serious infections in the lungs, blood, and brain. People affected by flu are more vulnerable to the potentially life-threatening bacteria.
Aside from people with heart problems, diabetes patients are also more susceptible to contracting pneumococcal disease, Lukang Christian Hospital superintendent Tu Shih-te (杜思德) said, who doubles as director-general of the Taiwanese Association of Diabetes Educators.
“Due to their weakened immune systems, diabetes patients are already prone to long-term complications such as diabetic nephropathy, the most common cause of renal failure. If they are infected by Streptococcus pneumoniae it can further aggravate their conditions and put them at risk of invasive illnesses,” Tu said.
“More alarming is that such patients are twice as likely to die one month after being infected by pneumococcal disease as people without diabetes,” Tu added.
NTUH Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases director Huang Li-min (黃立民) said the US’ Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that adults aged 65 or older receive a dose of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine before getting a pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices advises people above the age of 50 and who are in the high-risk groups to be vaccinated against these type of diseases.
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