Taiwanese-American HIV/AIDS academic David Ho (何大一) is one of several overseas consultants who are helping with the treatment of the victims of a recent organ transplant scandal in which they were given HIV-infected organs, Centers for Disease Control Director-General Chang Feng-yee (張峰義) said.
“We have assembled a group of medical professionals to care for the five transplant recipients and the team members have consulted foreign experts, including Ho, on the best courses of treatment for the patients,” Chang said.
The five victims — four at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei and one at National Cheng Kung University Hospital in Tainan — are taking post--transplant anti-rejection drugs and post-exposure anti-viral medication, Chang said.
“All the foreign experts with whom we have consulted, including Ho, agree that the anti-viral medication that we have prescribed to the five patients will not inhibit the function of the anti-rejection medication,” Chang said, adding that the therapy the patients are receiving is the most appropriate choice of drug combinations.
The five patients received organ transplants from a brain-dead HIV-positive donor on Aug. 24 and Aug. 25 and began to take preventive anti-viral medication on Aug. 26, Chang said.
“They have to take the drug combination for three months, at which point the medical team will then assess whether the drug regimen should be continued or can be stopped,” Chang said, adding that HIV infection cannot be confirmed until six months after the end of drug therapy.
Liao Hsueh-tsung (廖學聰), director of Taipei Medical University Hospital’s AIDS therapy center, said that in 2000, a patient took post-exposure anti-viral medication for nine months after receiving an HIV-contaminated blood transfusion.
The patient tested negative six months after he ended the drug regimen, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching