President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday instructed the Ministry of Health and Welfare to formulate a plan of action for the prevention and treatment of Ebola in case China is affected by the virus.
“If Ebola reaches China, our nation would be at high risk of an imported case of Ebola. We have to be well-prepared for that,” Ma told the high-level meeting of the National Security Council yesterday, according to a press statement issued by the Presidential Office.
Ma urged the public not to panic about Ebola, as it is transmitted through physical contact with infected bodily fluids, as opposed to airborne transmission as in the case of SARS, which hit the nation in 2003.
“Our country has abundant experience in undertaking necessary preparations to prevent outbreaks of communicable diseases,” Ma said.
The government would elevate the level of command from the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) if Ebola spread, Ma said.
Ma urged the CDC and other authorities to protect the nation against Ebola by reminding people traveling abroad to take preventive measures, enhancing screening for Ebola at borders, staging drills on how to handle an Ebola patient and seeking international cooperation.
Taiwan is to send 100,000 Ebola prevention kits and US$1 million in donations to the international community and send more medical personnel to Ebola-hit regions to help curb the virus, Ma said.
In the wake of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since early August has had a travel alert for the three west African nations set to “red” on its four-color travel advisory system, suggesting that people avoid going to the countries unless absolutely necessary.
Bureau of Consular Affairs Chief Secretary Cheng Shyang-yun (程祥雲) told a routine press conference that the ministry has ordered stricter visa reviews for applicants from the three countries, including the requirement that applicants provide a health report.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
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