The number of SARS cases in the country fell yesterday after six cases were reclassified, and National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) said it had developed a faster way of detecting antibodies to the disease.
With one new probable SARS case, the total stood at 679 yesterday, from 684 the day before. The number of deaths remained unchanged at 81.
The Department of Health(DOH) said it was significant for the country's bid to get the World Health Organization to lift its travel advisory on Taiwan that yesterday was the sixth day in a row there had been fewer that five new SARS cases.
The DOH yesterday also unveiled a new method of detecting SARS antibodies, called immunochromatography (ICT).
"With ICT, now it is much quicker and simpler to test whether a patient is infected with SARS," said Su Yi-jen (蘇益仁), director of the Center for Disease Control.
"It takes only 30 minutes to test whether a patient has the coronavirus," added Su.
Chen Pei-jer (
While less than 100 percent accurate, the new test detects SARS antibodies better than existing methods, Chen said.
Meanwhile, the DOH and National Taiwan University Medical School said yesterday that the source of the SARS outbreak at Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital did not originate from the Amoy Gardens Complex in Hong Kong.
It was thought that a woman named Tsao, who brought the disease to Hoping Hospital, contracted the disease from an Amoy resident surnamed Tseng while on a train to Taichung.
Tseng and the brother he was visiting in Taichung both died of the disease.
The medical school studied the virus' gene sequence and found that the specimen from Hoping Hospital was different from the one found at the Hong Kong apartment complex, which was linked to earlier cases in Taiwan.
"So far we still cannot nail down the source of the virus at Hoping," Chen said.
He said that Tseng, a Taiwanese businessman based in China called Chin who returned to Taiwan in March and NTUH doctor Tsai Tzu-Hsiu (蔡子修) had contracted the virus from a similar source. These cases were the first to be discovered in the country.
Cases found at Hoping Hospital, Jen Chi Hospital and a noodle vendor from Hsinchuang who was thought to have spread the disease at Mackay Hospital had a different source, Chen said.
The researchers said they didn't know whether knowledge of the gene sequence would help with treatment of the disease.
"We still don't know whether the sequences will tell us about how serious the disease is or whether the symptoms for every patient are the same, but we surely hope that this can help us to learn more about the epidemic and find better cures," said Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池), director of the Department of Internal Medicine at NTUH.
Also see story:
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
TECH EFFECT: While Chiayi County was the oldest region in the nation, Hsinchu county and city, home of the nation’s chip industry, were the youngest, the report showed Seven of the nation’s administrative regions, encompassing 57.2 percent of Taiwan’s townships and villages, became “super-aged societies” in June, the Ministry of the Interior said in its latest report. A region is considered super-aged if 20 percent of the population is aged 65 or older. The ministry report showed that Taiwan had 4,391,744 people aged 65 or older as of June, representing 18.76 percent of the total population and an increase of 1,024,425 people compared with August 2018. In June, the nation’s elderly dependency ratio was 27.3 senior citizens per 100 working-aged people, an increase of 7.39 people over August 2018, it said. That
‘UNITED FRONT’: The married couple allegedly produced talk show videos for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to influence Taiwan’s politics A husband and wife affiliated with the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) were indicted yesterday for allegedly receiving NT$74 million (US$2.32 million) from China to make radio and digital media propaganda to promote the Chinese government’s political agenda and influence the outcome of Taiwan’s elections. Chang Meng-chung (張孟崇) and his wife, Hung Wen-ting (洪文婷), allegedly received a total of NT$74 million from China between 2021 and last year to promote candidates favored by Beijing, contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and election laws, the Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office said. The couple acted as Beijing’s propaganda mouthpiece by disparaging Hong Kong democracy activists
EARLY ARRIVALS: The first sets of HIMARS purchased from the US arrived ahead of their scheduled delivery, with troops already training on the platforms, a source said The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said it spotted 35 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and bombers, flying to the south of Taiwan proper on the way to exercises in the Pacific, a second consecutive day it has reported such activities. The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a request for comment on the missions, reported just days before tomorrow’s US presidential election. The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Its arms sales to Taipei include a US$2 billion missile system announced last month. The MND said that from 9am yesterday,
RSS