The Control Yuan has asked the Ministry of Environment and the Kaohsiung City Government to review and adjust their use of pesticides in mosquito control.
The issue stemmed from a complaint Kaohsiung City Councilor Chung Yi-chung (鍾易仲) received in 2023 saying that the city government’s Department of Health had reduced the dilution ratio of mosquito pesticides by 30-fold in its effort to prevent dengue fever — a high concentration that could harm human health.
The department at the time said in response that the dilution ratio had remained unchanged over the past two decades.
Photo: Taipei Times
The complaint was forwarded to the Control Yuan, which on Wednesday last week reviewed and approved the investigation results of its Committee on Social Welfare and Environment Hygiene Affairs.
Control Yuan member Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容) on Sunday said the city government was found to have adjusted repellents’ dilution ratio for urgent mosquito control, as well as used an effective dose per unit area to evaluate whether its use of pesticides complies with regulatory requirements.
However, the department did not account for different tools and contexts of their implementation, and part of its repellent use might be excessive based on specialists’ calculations, Chi said.
The city government should apply mosquito repellents within the suggested dilution ratio determined in the Executive Yuan’s dengue-control meetings, she said.
In the Guidelines for Dengue/Chikungunya Control, the Centers for Disease Control recommends that local governments use chemical space spray solutions, such as ultra-low volume spraying or thermal fogging (including smoke bombs), to control adult mosquito populations, she said.
The Control Yuan’s investigation found that most local governments used thermal foggers to apply pesticides used to kill adult mosquitoes to control dengue fever, while power sprayers are the most recommended tool on the product labels of repellants approved by the environment ministry, Chi said.
Only 7.19 percent of repellant products specify that thermal foggers can be used, but current practices in dengue prevention are markedly different, she said.
Therefore, the ministry should address local governments’ noncompliance with product labeling requirements for mosquito repellants, she said.
It should also establish more explicit guidelines on the use of different tools for local governments to properly administer pesticides used in dengue fever control and prevention, she added.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS