Two children in Taiwan recently contracted polio after receiving an oral version of the vaccine designed to protect against the disease, the Department of Health (衛生署) confirmed yesterday.
The children's limbs began to exhibit symptoms of paralysis three to six months after receiving their first vaccination, according to the health department's report.
These are the first cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) to appear in Taiwan in over 14 years, according to records.
Children in Taiwan are given the Sabin vaccine against polio -- an orally administered liquid vaccine that contains weakened live polio virus. The Salk vaccine -- which involves the injection of dead polio virus -- is safer, although many times more expensive, according to reports.
The oral vaccine does pose the threat of infection, particularly among children with dis-orders that make it hard for their bodies to fight infection.
Still, the threat is small. The risk of polio infection from the oral vaccine in Taiwan is around one in three million. This rate is lower than that in the US and European countries, health officials claim.
Health officials advise parents with children suffering from immune system conditions to use the Salk vaccine for their children, but say that the oral vaccine is still a cheap and safe method for prevention of the disease for most children.
In the UK, the polio vaccines are usually given at age two months, three months and four months, with a reinforcing dose (a booster) before school age, usually between 3 and 5 years of age and again, before leaving school, between 15 and 19 years old.
Boosters thereafter are not normally necessary, unless travelling to an area where polio is common, or likely to be exposed to people with polio.
Adults who have not been previously vaccinated can undergo a course consisting of three doses, a month apart.
Polio can be spread by drinking water infected with the virus or by close human contact such as kissing.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS