The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday urged people to take precautions against the flu over the New Year’s holiday, as flu cases have been on the rise in Taiwan over the past few weeks.
In the week ending on Dec. 22, a total of 68,148 people sought outpatient or emergency treatment for flu-like symptoms at hospitals and clinics across the nation, compared with 61,628 people the week before, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said, adding that 20 of the patients — 85 percent of whom had not received flu vaccines — developed serious flu complications.
The predominant flu strain over the past four weeks has been H3N2, Chuang said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
Temperatures during the New Year holiday and the rest of the week are expected to be relatively low, and Chuang urged people who plan on participating in New Year’s Eve festivities to protect themselves against the flu by wearing masks and frequently washing their hands.
The weather is to remain cold and wet across Taiwan over the next two days, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday, adding that heavy cloud cover over Taiwan would likely prevent people from seeing the first rays of the sun coming over the horizon on the first day of the year.
In other news, the centers said a new measles case was confirmed in Taipei on Saturday as a mother had contracted the disease from her 11-month-old boy, who was last week confirmed to have the disease.
The mother, in her 30s, developed a fever on Monday last week, after her baby had developed similar symptoms about a week earlier, and was confirmed eight days later to have the measles, the centers said, adding that the progression of the two cases indicated that the mother contracted the disease from the baby.
Chuang said the mother and the young boy visited the Philippines in early November, and the baby might have caught the disease there based on how his case has progressed, making it an imported case.
He said he was surprised to learn that the mother was in January inoculated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), but had not yet developed any antibodies, something that happens in only 5 percent of MMR vaccinations.
According to the Taipei Department of Health, 138 people were identified as having come into contact with the mother, and they are being closely monitored by health authorities until Jan. 18.
Of the 138 people, 114 worked with the mother, 14 had visited a supermarket in Neihu District (內湖) and 10 had eaten at a restaurant in Nangang District (南港), Taipei Department of Health official Ou Chia-ling (歐佳齡) said.
A total of 272 people have been identified as having come into contact with the baby, and 15 of them have developed a fever, cough and runny nose, Chuang said, adding that the people are being monitored until Jan. 8.
A total of 39 measles cases have been reported in Taiwan so far this year, 11 of which were contracted abroad, CDC data showed.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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