Taipei Chang Gung Memorial Hospital doctors yesterday said that they have prepared 200 Zika prevention packs for Taiwanese athletes and staff attending the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro next month.
Although the Games are to begin in less than a month, the mosquito-borne Zika virus is still spreading in Brazil, the hospital’s sports medicine team said, adding that it has placed personal hygiene items and mosquito repellant in the packs.
Lin Yin-chou (林瀛洲), a physician and coordinator of the medical team that is to accompany Taiwanese athletes to Brazil, said that each pack contains a thermometer to be used to measure an athlete’s temperature every day and a facial mask to wear in crowded public spaces, as well as alcohol swabs, a bottle of hand disinfectant and a bottle of mosquito repellent.
Chen Nan-yu (楊政道), a physician in the hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases, said the mosquito repellent is for preventing Zika infection, while face masks can protect the athletes from other airborne diseases, such as influenza.
The team said Zika’s main route of transmission is almost the same as dengue fever, as both can be transmitted by Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, with symptoms including fever, headache, muscle pain, joint pain and conjunctivitis.
“Fever is a common symptom of infection, so if the athletes find their body temperature rising above 38oC, they should seek medical treatment as soon as possible,” Chen said.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS