Doctors at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Thursday warned that people with chronic hepatitis B or C should watch for signs of cardiovascular disease, especially heart attacks.
Cardiologist Wu Chien-chia (吳健嘉) said that the hospital admitted a 62-year-old man surnamed Chang (張) who complained of sweating at night and chronic chest pain.
Chang had no medical history of the “three hypers” — hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia and hypertension — but is a carrier of hepatitis C, Wu said.
Photo: Wu Liang-chi, Taipei Times
Evidence shows that chronic hepatitis can lead to a heart attack from atherosclerosis, he said.
A six-and-a-half-year study surveyed the National Health Insurance records of 12,000 hepatitis B and C carriers, tracking the condition of their arteries, he said.
The study showed that people with chronic hepatitis C were 1.3 times more likely to develop acute coronary syndrome and acute ischemic stroke — characterized by a sudden loss of blood circulation in the brain — and had a mortality rate 1.48 times that of people with hepatitis B, Wu said.
While the data did not show that people with chronic hepatitis B exhibit a significantly greater chance of a heart attack, there was still debate over the matter among medical experts, he said.
The study also showed that people with chronic hepatitis C are 1.77 times more susceptible to severe dysrhythmia, Wu added.
People with chronic hepatitis B were more prone to cirrhosis and 100 times more susceptible to liver cancer than non-carriers, Wu said.
While hepatitis C is treatable, Wu said that people who do not recover within six months could develop chronic conditions, with 5 to 20 percent developing cirrhosis in 15 to 20 years.
About 15 percent of those people die from cirrhosis or liver cancer, he said, adding that people should get regular checkups and adhere to doctors’ advice regarding treatment.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS