A 53-year-old Taiwanese man who had worked in China’s Jiangsu Province has tested positive for the H7N9 avian flu virus, the Central Epidemic Command Center said yesterday.
The man, who is now in serious condition, is receiving treatment, including intubation, in a negative-pressure quarantine ward, the center said.
It marked the first confirmed human infection of the new bird flu strain in Taiwan and also the first confirmed H7N9 case outside of China, the center said.
Photo: David Chang, EPA
The infection source of the first imported H7N9 case remained unknown, because he neither came into contact with poultry or other birds during his stay in Jiangsu, nor had he eaten raw or undercooked eggs or poultry while there, the center said.
The patient fell ill three days after his return from China, the center said.
According to the center, 139 people are known to have come into contact with him. Three of them had close contact, 26 had contact more than seven days ago (putting them past the infectious period) and 110 are hospital personnel, it said.
Three of the hospital personnel, who had taken proper protective measures when providing medical care for the patient, have developed respiratory symptoms, the center said.
The center added that all those who have had contact with the patient have been notified and told to take care of their health.
They will be subject to close monitoring until the infectious period expires, the center said, adding that public health officials will help people on the watch list get medical treatment should they develop flu-like symptoms, such as fever or coughing.
According to the center, the patient is a hepatitis B carrier and also suffers from hypertension, adding that his H7N9 infection was confirmed yesterday.
The center said it had informed the WHO and China of the case earlier in the day.
China reported the world’s first confirmed human infections of H7N9 on March 31, and as of Tuesday, 108 cases had been confirmed in China, with 22 deaths.
The CDC said there is still no evidence that the H7N9 virus has mutated into a form that will allow sustained person-to-person transmissions.
Later yesterday evening, the Taipei City Government launched its emergency response mechanism to provide information to the public. It also opened an avian flu hotline on (02) 2375-3782 to answer questions from those who have concerns about the flu.
Taipei City’ Department of Health Chief Secretary Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said that people with questions can also call the 1999 Citizen Hotline and that department members would assist the hotline staff with inquiries about the flu, and seek to reduce public panic over the first case of H7N9.
Head of the department Lin Chi-hung (林奇宏) yesterday declined to confirm whether the first H7N9 case was in Taipei, but said the department will inspect the facilities of the city’s designated avian flu response hospital, Taipei Hoping Hospital, and another 16 hospitals that are equipped with quarantine rooms to prevent a potential outbreak.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS