A total of 165 residents of Xishan Borough (溪山) in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) have reported vomiting or other gastrointestinal symptoms since April 2, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday, while the Water Department said water samples from a water source in the borough and a local elementary school showed large amounts of Escherichia coli bacteria that exceeded the safety standard.
The Taipei Water Department on Thursday said that it received a report from the borough warden on Monday about dozens of residents living in the same water source area having experienced vomiting or diarrhea recently, so it conducted an inspection that day, which found higher-than-usual counts of E coli.
It said the affected households used untreated spring water collected from their self-built water source system, not treated tap water supplied by the department. As the water was found to have high counts of E coli which exceeded the drinking water standard, the department instructed them to boil the water if it is used for bathing or washing food ingredients or containers.
Photo: CNA
Five temporary stands have been set up in the borough to provide residents with clean water, the water department said on Friday.
The health department said yesterday that it had been conducting a survey of all 594 households in Xishan Borough and had finished visiting 508 households as of 9pm on Friday, and 165 people in 65 households had reported vomiting, diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms since April 2.
Among them, 105 people sought medical treatment, while 60 people only self-observed their health, and none of them developed serious symptoms or were hospitalized, it said.
The health department said Taipei City Hospital’s Yangming branch on Thursday evening dispatched a medical team to the village office to offer medical services, and it opened an acute gastroenteritis outpatient clinic at the hospital on Friday, which is to be available through Saturday, except today.
Xishan Borough residents who feel discomfort or have gastrointestinal symptoms are advised to seek medical attention at the designated clinic, it said.
The Water Department said yesterday that while the water sample collected from the self-built water source area on Monday was tested and found to have an E coli count of 3,900 MPN/100ml, another sample collected on Wednesday had an E coli count of 1,700 MPN/100ml and the latest sample collected on Friday resulted in an E coli count of 2,400 MPN/100ml, all relatively high.
Additional water samples were collected from two other locations in the self-built water source area, and at the local Taipei Xishan Experimental Elementary School on Friday, it said, adding that the two samples were found to have E coli counts of 5,800 MPN/100ml and 1,400 MPN/100ml.
Water at the elementary school is treated with UV light, but it was still found to have an E coli count of 86 MPN/100ml, which is still higher than the drinking water standard, the water department said, adding that it had sent experts to assist in disinfecting and treating the water at the self-built water source system yesterday.
The maximum acceptable concentration of E coli in drinking water is 6 MPN/100ml.
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
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘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
RSS