TRANSPORTATION
Free circular line rides end
Starting tomorrow, passengers would no longer be able to travel free of cost on the Taipei MRT metropolitan rail network’s new circular line and would instead be charged regular fares, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said. Rides have been free on the line since it officially opened on Jan. 31, but the concession period ends today. Starting tomorrow, passengers on the line would be charged the regular fares and would obtain the usual discount when transferring to a city bus or YouBike, the firm said. At MRT Banqiao Station, where the circular and Bannan lines intersect, transfers made from one line to another within 20 minutes would not incur an additional fee, although it is an “out-of-station” transfer point, it said. The same applies to transfers at MRT Xinpu Station, the company said, adding that people using single-journey tokens must exit through a designated gate to qualify for the free transfer.
HEALTH
FDA issues recall of Pitavol
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday issued a recall of all Pitavol 2mg tablets after tests found that the drug exceeded limits when stored for more than two years. The drug’s manufacturer reported the issue after discovering that residual impurities after two years exceeded limits, the agency said. More than 4 million tablets are expected to be recalled, the FDA said, adding that as it is a class 2 recall, it had only notified unions, hospitals and clinics, and listed the drug on the recall section of its Web site. Pitavol is used to treat primary hypercholesterolemia and mixed dyslipidemia, the FDA said, adding that patients should not stop taking their medication. If patients are worried, they should consult their doctor about similar medication, it said.
HEALTH
Man tests positive for Zika
A Taiwanese man who last month returned from Thailand has been confirmed to have the Zika virus, Taiwan’s first imported infection this year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. The man, in his 40s, lives in northern Taiwan and returned from a vacation in Thailand on Jan. 30, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. Between Feb. 6 and Feb. 11, the man visited a hospital several times, complaining of a sore throat, rash and pain, Lin said, adding that doctors suspected that he had dengue or Chikungunya fever, but he tested negative for both. It was not until Tuesday, when he no longer had symptoms or was contagious, that the man was confirmed to have contracted the Zika virus, Lin said. None of the man’s relatives who traveled with him to Thailand have exhibited symptoms, Lin said, adding that the neighborhood where the man lives has been disinfected.
HEALTH
Temple bans incense use
Longshan Temple (龍山寺), one of Taipei’s oldest and most popular temples, yesterday announced that it would ban the burning of incense from March 13 due to environmental and health concerns. The ban is an expansion of the temple’s candle-burning ban introduced in May last year to improve air quality, and after a fire devastated the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. Wu Meng-huan (吳孟寰), an official at Taipei’s Xia Hai City God Temple (霞海城隍廟), said that his temple has no plans to ban the burning of incense. Xia Hai City God Temple first reduced the use of incense and incense burners about 20 years ago, but if any further change was made it would probably consider limiting worshipers to burning one incense stick each instead of the current three, he added.
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
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,
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