The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday urged people planning to visit China and the US to get vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) to avoid infection during the peak season.
In a press release issued yesterday, the centers said measles cases usually rise in January and February and peak in spring in China, where more than 56,000 measles cases were reported last year.
“The situation this year is particularly worrisome in Beijing, where 142 people have been diagnosed with the highly contagious respiratory disease since the beginning of this month — three times the number recorded during the same period last year,” the centers said.
In North America, the centers said that at least 84 cases of measles have been confirmed, in several regions including Mexico and California in a Disneyland-linked outbreak, with most of those infected not having received or completed a two-dose MMR vaccination course.
The CDC said that of the 26 measles cases reported in Taiwan last year, 18 — or 69.2 percent — came from overseas, including nine toddlers.
“Currently, there are approximately 800,000 Taiwanese businessmen based in China, while about 320,000 to 330,000 Chinese people visit Taiwan per month. Frequent cross-strait personnel contact and exchanges may further fuel spread of a contagious disease,” the centers said.
The CDC urged parents to have their children immunized immediately and refrain from taking babies younger than one year old to measles-affected areas.
Measles is a highly infectious viral disease that is transmitted via respiration. It often manifests in a skin rash that occurs seven to 18 days after infection, with other symptoms and complications including fever, coughing, ear inflammation, pneumonia and meningitis.
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