Gearing up to fight a potential outbreak of bird flu this winter, the Center for Disease Control yesterday announced measures to prevent its spread, some of which require health workers across the country to notify authorities if a case is suspected.
Despite the absence of the H5N1 strain in Taiwan so far this season, the CDC said its plans were a precautionary measure to help stop a possible epidemic before it starts. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed 70 percent of those who contracted it this year.
"We are building networks with 500 hospitals nationwide. If a bird flu infection is suspected, doctors and hospitals must report to local health authorities immediately and take swab and blood samples within 24 hours," said the center's director, Kuo Hsu-sung (郭旭崧).
According to the center, health professionals in the designated hospitals must report any patient who develops flu symptoms and find out if he or she has recently traveled to countries affected by bird flu in the past three months. Others patients with pneumonia and conjunctivitis are also at a higher risk of contracting bird flu, the center said.
"Once a suspected case is identified, we will analyze the swab and blood samples. If the results confirm an H5 or H7 strain of the flu, we will treat patients with antiviral drugs," said Yan Jer-jea (
The center has over 2.27 million antiviral tablets stockpiled, which can treat about 227,000 people.
"The purpose of launching the reporting system is to raise awareness among health workers. We can't afford to underestimate the lethal virus strain," Yan said.
According to Article 63 of the Communicable Disease Prevention Law (
Earlier this month, the WHO issued warnings that H5N1 could ignite a pandemic this winter and kill as many as 50 million people globally.
The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam this year, and millions of chickens, ducks and other birds have been culled across Asia to stop the virus' spread.
Fears of the spread of the H5N1 strain re-emerged in Japan recently, as health officials there said on Dec. 22 that at least one person had been infected with the strain after an outbreak among chickens in Kyoto.
"We don't know when the epidemic will erupt in Taiwan. But we can prepare ourselves to contain it," Kuo said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS