Olympic bronze medalist flyweight boxer Huang Hsiao-wen (黃筱雯) has released a government-sponsored short video on World AIDS Day yesterday to raise awareness about HIV testing, in the hope that people infected with the virus can seek treatment earlier.
The one-minute video shows Huang getting knocked down during a fight, only to pull herself up again.
“Maybe I can’t change my environment or what others think of me, but I can change my fate. I believe by not surrendering and succumbing to fate and bravely living my life, I will be victorious,” Huang says in the video to motivate herself before continuing the fight.
The video, to be used as a public service announcement, aims to inform people that HIV tests are nonintrusive and can be done privately and discreetly, Huang said on Tuesday.
Many hospitals provide anonymous testing services, while self-test kits can be ordered online from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and collected at convenience stores, said Huang, the CDC’s promotional ambassador for this year’s World AIDS Day.
Born in 1997, Huang won Taiwan’s first Olympic boxing medal at the Tokyo Olympics this year, after winning bronze at the 2018 Asian Games and gold at the 2019 International Boxing Association (amateur) Women’s World Boxing Championships.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said he expects about 1,250 HIV cases this year, down 11 percent from 1,389 cases last year.
Case numbers have steadily dropped over the past four years, with 2,508 in 2017, 1,983 in 2018 and 1,748 in 2019, Lo said.
Taiwan hopes to achieve the Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS’ 95-95-95 target by 2025, he said.
That means that 95 percent of HIV-positive people know about their infection, 95 percent of knowingly HIV-positive people receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and 95 percent of those in therapy have suppressed viral loads.
Lo said that Taiwan is at 90 percent, 93 percent and 95 percent respectively, and expects to raise the share of those receiving antiretroviral therapy by 1 percentage point until the end of this year.
To reach that goal, the CDC prioritizes testing, he said.
CDC data showed that 34,477 people in Taiwan are HIV-positive, and 7,550 have died related to the disease since it was first reported.
Observed annually on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the disease and remembering those who have died from AIDS-related conditions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
CHAMPION TREES: The team used light detection and ranging imaging to locate the tree, and found that it measured a height of 84.1m and had a girth of 8.5m A team committed to finding the tallest trees in the nation yesterday said that an 84.1m tall Taiwania cryptomerioides tree had been named the tallest tree in Taiwan and East Asia. The Taiwan Champion Trees, a team consisting of researchers from the Council of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), in June last year used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging to find the giant tree, numbered 55214, upstream of the Daan River (大安溪). A 20-member expedition team led by Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君), an assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, set out to find the
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Tourism Bureau plans to offer incentives to attract international tourists as the nation plans to gradually lift all travel restrictions to contain COVID-19, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday. The incentives would be funded by surplus national tax revenue from last year, Wang said. The funding could be appropriated after the legislature passes draft special statutes governing the use of the surplus tax revenue in the upcoming legislative session, he said. Of the NT$450 billion (US$14.97 billion) in surplus tax revenue, the government plans to spend NT$100 billion on seven categories of projects to bolster Taiwan’s