The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday ruled out Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) as the cause of the illness of a woman who recently returned home from the Middle East.
According to CDC Deputy Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), the agency on Wednesday received reports of a woman with symptoms that led it to suspect MERS was the cause, such as coughing and diarrhea, after she returned from Jordan and Israel on Sunday.
“Due to the patient’s travel history and pneumonia-like symptoms, the hospital treating her immediately notified the CDC in accordance with disease prevention protocols. It also admitted her into a negatively pressurized isolation ward for further observation,” Chou said.
Chou said the centers put a rush on the woman’s screening test for MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which came back negative yesterday morning.
According to CDC statistics, the woman is the 16th patient to be suspected of having MERS-CoV since an outbreak began in the Middle East in 2012, that had sickened 1,139 people and killed 431 as of Monday.
All the test results of the 16 tested negative for the virus.
“Given that a MERS outbreak in South Korea has yet to be brought under control, people traveling to the nation are requested to answer questions regarding their recent travel history and whether they have had close contact with MERS-afflicted patients, should they exhibit fever,” Chou said.
The centers urged airports, airline companies and travel agencies to pay attention to the health of their clients and ask them to wear hygiene masks if they feel unwell.
People feeling unwell after overseas travel, or those who have any inquiries regarding MERS can call the CDC disease prevention hotline on 1922, the centers said.
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