The Taoyuan City Government has helped pay the medical expenses of a resident who developed blood clotting after he received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the first such case in Taiwan, Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said on Saturday.
The man surnamed Yu (余), who is in his 30s, received the first shot of the vaccine on May 12, and on May 22 sought medical assistance at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, reporting a persistent headache and abdominal pain.
Doctors diagnosed the condition, as well as a low platelet level, and he was admitted to an intensive care unit at the hospital, where he remained until May 27.
He was released from the hospital on Tuesday last week.
The cost for the treatment included an out-of-pocket payment of NT$700,000, which Yu reportedly could not cover.
Cheng said that the city government has covered that cost through its municipal COVID-19 relief fund and that it seeks to reimburse the cost from the central government.
The established procedure in such cases is that local authorities seek reimbursement from the central government first, but in this case, a municipal committee on relief funding for people injured by medication decided to cover the cost directly, Cheng said.
Meanwhile, the Central Epidemic Command Center has advised those who have symptoms of thrombosis within 28 days of receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine to visit a doctor as soon as possible, and inform the doctor about the vaccination.
Symptoms might include a persistent headache, change in vision, seizures, abdominal pain lasting more than one day, chest pain or trouble breathing, swelling in the lower limbs, blotches on the skin, and bruises, the center said.
Additional reporting by Yang Yuan-ting and CNA
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the