HEALTH
Meningitis cases confirmed
Three cases of meningitis infection have been confirmed between Thursday last week and Monday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, cautioning the public of the worldwide meningitis season every spring and winter. The three patients — an eight-month-old girl in Hualien County, a three-year-old boy in Taitung County and a 16-year-old boy in Greater Taichung — all experienced fever before being hospitalized, the agency said. While the two younger children’s conditions have stabilized, with one in the general ward and the other discharged, the 16-year-old, who developed symptoms of neck stiffness, a bleeding skin rash, impaired consciousness and finally a coma, is in critical condition and has been placed in intensive care. As of yesterday, a total of five cases of meningitis have been confirmed this year (two of Group B, two of Group C and one ungroupable), the CDC said.
TRAVEL
Bangkok alert continues
No Taiwanese have been reported to have been affected by anti-government protests in Bangkok, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said yesterday, adding that the nation’s representative office there is closely monitoring the situation. However, ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) urged Taiwanese planning to travel there to be alert and to avoid visits to crowded areas. The ministry is maintaining a “gray” travel alert for Thailand, which has been in place since earlier this month. It is the lowest of the government’s four-color travel alerts and urges caution on the part of travelers. Kao’s remarks came after anti-government protesters stormed the Thai Ministry of Finance and broke into the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs compound a day earlier in a bid to overthrow Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
SOCIETY
Products need votes
The Changhua County Government wants the public to vote online for the products and food specialties they think are most representative of the county, Deputy Changhua County Commissioner Ko Cheng-fang (柯呈枋) said yesterday. A panel of 30 experts has selected 24 food products and six other items for the public to choose from, Ko said. The products include fruit wine, taro cake, black rice, garlic snacks, tea sets and incense, he said. The county government has also invited 300 faculty members and students of Chung Chou University of Science and Technology to see, taste and touch the products before voting for the top 10, Ko said. The poll to pick the top 10 products began on Monday and runs through Dec. 9 on www.2013chaggift.com.tw.
HEALTH
MOFA protests H7N9 listing
MOFA said yesterday that its office in Japan has lodged a protest with the Japanese government and demanded a correction to a Web site that listed Taiwan as an area with the avian influenza (H7N9) virus. Ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan contacted authorities in Tokyo and was told that the record of H7N9 infections in Taiwan and China had been listed separately. Kao was responding to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher’s (黃偉哲) complaint earlier in the day that Japan added the number of H7N9 influenza cases in China to the count for Taiwan and listed Taiwan as an H7N9 alert area.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
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