The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday confirmed that a Taiwanese woman was bitten by a rabid dog when she was in Bali, Indonesia, earlier this month. The woman is now under observation in a hospital.
CDC physician Philip Yi-chun Lo (羅一鈞) said the woman, in her 30s, arrived with her friends in Bali on Oct. 11. The next day, they visited the famed tourist attraction Tanah Lot, where she was chased and bitten by a rabid dog on her left calf and ankle.
She was immediately sent to a hospital and received tetanus and rabies vaccinations and antibiotic injections, as well as some oral medicine, Lo said.
The local health agency and the Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Indonesia on Thursday reported that the dog had been culled.
When the woman returned to Taiwan on Thursday, she was given human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) injections and a third dose of rabies vaccination at a quarantine station, the CDC said.
Rabies has an almost 100 percent mortality rate if left untreated, but by getting five rabies vaccinations (on the first, third, seventh, 14th and 28th day since being bitten) and HRIG promptly, the outbreak can be controlled, Lo said.
The woman has shown no adverse symptoms, but the CDC will continue to observe and monitor her condition, Lo said.
He reminded the public that if they are bitten by a potentially rabid animal, they should report the incident, wash the wound thoroughly with soap and water, seek immediate medical attention and observe for symptoms of rabies.
In other news, the Central Epidemic Command Center for dengue fever yesterday said that the outbreak in Kaohsiung is entering a peak season, with 142 reported cases on Monday, an increase of 16 cases compared with the same day last week.
Since the outbreak of dengue fever in May, the majority of the cases have occurred in Tainan, followed by Kaohsiung. However, starting last weekend, the daily number of reported cases in Kaohsiung has surpassed that of Tainan.
A total of 280 dengue cases were reported nationwide on Monday, with 142 in Kaohsiung and 127 in Tainan, Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said.
The figures suggest that the outbreak in Tainan appears to be under control, while Kaohsiung has entered a high period.
The total number of dengue fever cases nationwide has reached 25,659 since May — 20,527 in Tainan and 4,686 in Kaohsiung — with 106 confirmed deaths and 42 death cases waiting to be examined.
Liu added that the total number of imported dengue fever cases this year has reached 261, breaking the national record since 2010 — with 259, 122, 187, 221 and 193 cases reported from 2010 to last year respectively.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift