A woman in her 40s who had hyaluronic acid injected into her forehead suddenly suffered severe pain and lost all sight in her left eye, local media reported yesterday.
The woman received the injection at an aesthetic medical clinic to “plump up” her forehead, but claimed to feel a sudden, severe pain — as if lightning had flashed before her eyes — during the injection process, the Chinese-language Apple Daily reported.
Unable to see out of her left eye when she woke up the next morning, she went to be examined at Changhua Christian Hospital’s ophthalmology department, Apple Daily said, adding that she received follow-up treatment for three months, but doctors finally confirmed that she had lost all sight in her left eye.
Changhua Christian Hospital ophthalmologist Yang Shu-yun (楊舒雲) was quoted by Apple Daily as saying that the initial examination showed hyaluronic acid in the woman’s central retinal artery and branch retinal veins, causing occlusion.
Yang said she treated the patient with massage and medication, hoping to remove the hyaluronic acid filler out of the blood vessel and re-establish blood flow to the retina, but after three months of follow-up treatment, the woman’s left eye still could not perceive light and was declared blind.
The human face has a rich vascular network and sometimes during the process of receiving a dermal filler injection, a small amount of the filler might be injected into an artery or blood vessel, causing retinal artery occlusion, she said, adding that nasal filler injections also have a higher risk of central retinal artery occlusion.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS