A total of 66,513 cases of flu-like illness were reported last week, including a 36-year-old man who died from serious complications in just five days, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
The weekly number of reported cases increased 15 percent last week, showing a continuous growth trend, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said, adding that of 14 cluster infections, 13 were on school campuses.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said five cases of serious flu complications were confirmed last week, including a three-year-old girl in southern Taiwan who had no history of chronic disease and was vaccinated against the flu this season.
The girl was diagnosed with the influenza A virus and has been hospitalized, Lo said, adding that she is the youngest patient with serious complications reported this flu season.
CDC physician Huang Wan-ting (黃婉婷) said the 36-year-old man, who lived in eastern Taiwan and had a history of chronic kidney and cardiovascular disease, did not get vaccinated this flu season and was diagnosed with the influenza A virus.
The man had a fever, which led to difficulty breathing after four days, Huang said, adding that he was taken to an emergency room and immediately hospitalized after he was confirmed to have pneumonia.
He died the next day — only five days after the onset of the fever — and is the youngest fatality caused by the flu this season, she said.
There have been 62 cases of serious flu complications reported since Oct. 1, 56 percent of which involved the influenza B virus, agency statistics showed.
Two of three reported deaths were caused by influenza A subtype H3N2 infections, while the third was due to the influenza B virus, the data showed.
The flu season usually reaches its peak near the Lunar New Year holiday, but as temperatures have been relatively low and there is to be a three-day New Year’s holiday, the flu season will likely reach its peak on about New Year’s Day at the earliest, Lo said.
As flu infections can develop into pneumonia, encephalitis and myocarditis, the agency suggested that people get vaccinated; maintain good hand and respiratory hygiene by frequently washing their hands and covering their mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing; and to avoid crowded places.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS