PUBLIC HEALTH
MOFA calls for inclusion
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday urged the WHO to include Taiwan in its push for universal health coverage. “The 23 million people of #Taiwan have no access to the World Health Organization,” the ministry said in a tweet. “Sadly, they were never even given a choice. As #WorldHealthDay looms large, we remind @WHO that #HealthForAll can only be achieved with #AllHands-OnDeck. #TaiwanCanHelp.” The ministry also retweeted a WHO statement that was made earlier in the day to address the issue of universal healthcare. “Millions of people still have no access at all to health care,” the WHO said in its tweet. “Millions more are forced to choose between health care & other daily expenses such as food, clothes & even a home. That is why WHO is focusing on universal health coverage for this year’s #WorldHealthDay.” World Health Day, a global health awareness day, is celebrated annually on April 7.
EDUCATION
Study in Taiwan event held
The Taiwan Education Center Philippines and St Paul University Quezon City on Monday held an event to encourage the school’s students and faculty to study in Taiwan. Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Secretary of Education Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) briefed attendees on the nation’s higher-education system and quality of instruction. Whether students want to develop academically or develop practical skills, Taiwan can provide appropriate courses, Lee said, adding that scholarships for doctoral studies are available. Funded by the Ministry of Education, the center was set up in 2017 to partner with Philippine universities and promote Chinese-language learning. It also offers training courses for local Chinese-language instructors.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,