The Kaohsiung Department of Health has launched a surprise inspection program targeting shaved ice shops, it said yesterday, after more than 40 people allegedly fell ill from eating at a shaved ice store last week.
The health department on Monday said it had received several reports from a hospital between Thursday last week and Monday about people who had suspected food poisoning after eating shaved ice from a shop on Liouhe Road (六合路).
The department ordered the shop to suspend operations for a week, after it found several sanitation issues during a visit on Friday last week, including dirty floors and uncapped trash cans, it said, adding that it had failed to register with local authorities and lacked health records of food workers.
Photo: Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
Specimens from the store’s ice shaving machine and ice blocks tested negative for bacterial pathogens, but its “eight treasures” toppings tested positive for four types of bacterial pathogens: salmonella, staphylococcus aureus, escherichia coli and bacillus cereus, the health department said on Tuesday.
Some of the hospitalized cases tested positive for salmonella, it said, adding that a cross-check of the food items they allegedly ate with the testing results indicated that the possible source of infection was beans and other toppings prepared by the shop.
The department said the shop would remain suspended until it can meet Good Hygiene Practices standards, and would be fined NT$300,000.
The health department said it would also hand over evidence it collected to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office.
Additionally, as the ice factory that made the ice had no record of replacing its reverse osmosis filters, it was ordered to suspend operations until it met standards and the ice it made passed tests, the department said.
As of 4pm on Tuesday, 44 people who had allegedly eaten shaved ice from the shop had sought medical treatment, and 17 of them were hospitalized.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Tuesday instructed the department to launch a surprise inspection program on shaved ice shops in the city, it said.
Local Chinese-language media reported that a five-year-old child was among the food poisoning cases, and that the child had bloody stool, kidney failure and fell unconsciousness, and was admitted to an intensive care unit.
The health department said that the child was recovering after treatment, and was expected to be transferred to a general ward yesterday.
Additional reporting by CNA
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
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
RSS