The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday it was considering easing screening for swine flu now that the spread of the epidemic seemed to be slowing down.
“We will discuss whether passengers who sat more than six rows away from a confirmed swine flu patient on a flight should be tested,” CDC spokesman Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said.
“The virus is not as virulent as we expected. Now that the spread of the epidemic is slowing down, we are considering easing precautionary measures so that only those who sit within six rows of a confirmed patient are tested,” he said.
At press time yesterday, the CDC still required all passengers who shared a flight with a confirmed swine flu patient to be tested, no matter what seat they were in.
The Infectious Disease Society of Taiwan yesterday issued a statement along the same lines, but urged the CDC to prepare long-term anti-epidemic measures to combat the spread of viruses like the A(H1N1) swine flu strain.
The CDC yesterday completed tests on seven passengers who had been on the same flight as Hong Kong’s second confirmed swine flu patient on Monday. The results proved negative.
In related news, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday issued a yellow travel alert for Belgium, bringing to 29 the number of countries and areas that Taiwan has tagged with a yellow advisory since the start of the swine flu outbreak.
“In light of Belgium’s confirmation of its first human infection of swine flu, the ministry has issued a yellow travel alert for that country and is advising citizens to take health precautions,” the ministry’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said in a press release.
The ministry on Tuesday downgraded its travel advisory from red to orange for Mexico — the center of the worldwide outbreak — after the CDC lowered its disease level for the North American country.
Mexico remains the only country for which the ministry has issued an orange travel alert because of swine flu.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its