Taiwan’s latest local COVID-19 case had likely contracted the virus at work at an Academia Sinica laboratory, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
The woman, who is in her 20s, worked as a research assistant at the Genomics Research Center in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港) until Friday last week, where tests on mice using the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 are conducted, the center said.
The genome of virus samples taken from her and the genome of the virus tested at the lab were found to correspond, it said.
Photo: Fan Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The woman, who lives in New Taipei City, is Taiwan’s first domestic case since Nov. 4.
Her infection raised public concerns over whether she contracted the disease from within her community or at work, as well as over whether she might have infected others.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that 105 close contacts of the case — including former colleagues, classmates and people who had meals with her — were placed under isolation at centralized quarantine facilities, adding that 102 among them have so far tested negative for COVID-19.
Another 34 people were ordered to practice self-health management, of whom 32 tested negative, he said.
Chen said that 325 people who worked in the same building were ordered to practice self-health management, adding that 21 of them tested negative and the others would be tested tomorrow.
“Her close contacts, excluding three who are waiting to be tested, have all tested negative,” Chen said.
Her genome sequencing results showed that she was infected with the virus used for testing at the lab, Chen said.
Her virus’ genome differed from that of Delta cases reported between June and September, he added.
“We can determine that the case’s source of infection is the laboratory, not the local community,” Chen said.
Academia Sinica Department of Academic Affairs and Instrument Service Director-General Chen Chien-Chang (陳建璋) said the woman in October reported to her supervisor that she had been bitten by a lab mouse.
However, the incident was not reported to the institution’s dedicated department as required by its standard operating procedure of disaster response, he said.
Last month, the woman was again bitten by a lab mouse infected with the Alpha variant, he said.
At the time colleagues next to her in the lab were working on mice infected with the original strain of the virus and the Delta variant, he said.
“We cannot exclude the possibility of cross contamination within the laboratory,” he said.
Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said that each laboratory has its own guidelines and standard operating procedures, and further investigations would look into whether the guidelines and procedures had been followed strictly.
Chen Shih-chung said that it is unlikely that she contracted the virus from mouse bites, but added that she might have contracted the virus in a contaminated laboratory environment, for example the area where workers remove personal protective equipment.
He said environmental surface testing was yesterday performed in the building that houses the lab, and preliminary results showed that COVID-19 was detected in a few spots in the laboratory, including on doorknobs and desktops, but the virus was not detected anywhere outside the lab.
The CECC also confirmed reports by local media that the woman has been studying Japanese at Tamkang University’s Division of Continuing Education in Taipei.
Her teacher and 12 classmates are among the 105 close contacts placed in isolation, it said.
Chen Shih-chung said that there are no plans to impose further restrictions on year-end events, as all contacts of the case tested negative.
The CECC yesterday reported 10 imported cases, who arrived from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam and the US.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching