Taiwan ranks first in breast cancer control among nine territories and nations in Asia, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said, a report by the the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said.
The agency said this year’s breast cancer report published by the EIU in March assessed breast cancer control efforts in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Thailand as compared with Australia.
Australia is used as a benchmark because measures to control breast cancer there are similar to those in much of the Western world, the agency said.
The report said that Taiwan came in first with 45 points when measured against Australia, which scored 48 points in six areas — awareness; early detection; access to treatment and its quality; long-term survivor support and openness to advocacy; palliative care; and data collection.
Each category was assigned scores between one and eight, with eight being the highest. Taiwan scored eight in four categories, a seven in “access to treatment and its quality,” and a six in “palliative care.”
Trailing Taiwan were Hong Kong with 44 points, and Singapore and Japan with 43 points each.
Occurrence of breast cancer in Taiwan was the second highest in Asia, at 64.3 people per 100,000, and the five-year survival rate of Taiwan’s breast cancer patients was 87 percent, ranking fourth behind South Korea (91.5 percent), Hong Kong (90 percent) and Japan (89.1 percent), the report said.
HPA Cancer Prevention Section Director Wu Chien-yuan (吳建遠) said that breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in Taiwan, with an average of 28 women being diagnosed with breast cancer every day.
It is also the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in women, averaging five deaths every day.
HPA Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) urged women to stay away from risk factors such as cigarettes and alcohol, and pursue a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet and regular exercise.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai