Sixty percent of the travelers in 14 Taiwanese tour groups to South Korea displayed symptoms of stomach flu, four of whom tested positive for norovirus, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
The CDC said it was told by the Tourism Bureau and several travel agencies that 14 tour groups traveling in South Korea had recently suffered from gastroenteritis, with at least 246 of the 412 travelers experiencing diarrhea, abdominal pain and vomiting and four having been confirmed with the norovirus infection.
Thirty-six specimens from 28 returning travelers with symptoms have been collected, of which four have been found with the presence of norovirus, 17 have tested negative and 15 are still being tested.
The CDC said South Korean health authorities had also confirmed that the 10 Taiwanese travelers who visited local hospitals during their trip tested positive for the norovirus.
The visitors started to develop symptoms three or four days after their arrival in South Korea, the disease control agency said. It added that it could not rule out local restaurants being the cause of the infection, and has therefore asked the travel agencies to change the travelers’ dining destinations.
South Korean health authorities have also been contacted for an investigation on the environment and the working staff of the local restaurants suspected of contamination, the CDC said.
The agency said that norovirus is highly contagious and a common cause of viral gastroenteritis in winter, and that outbreaks of norovirus infection were also frequently reported in developed countries.
The primary mode of transmission of norovirus is the fecal-oral route, either through direct contact with the infected or via contaminated food or water, the CDC said.
People infected with the virus start to develop symptoms of gastroenteritis within one to three days of infection, which lasts for between one and 10 days, depending on the health of the infected individual, it said.
The common symptoms include watery diarrhea and vomiting accompanied by headache, fever, abdominal cramps, stomach pain, nausea and body aches.
Practicing proper hand hygiene and eating only thoroughly cooked food are effective ways to prevent the infection, the agency said.
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
The government would cancel kendo practitioner Su Yu-cheng’s (蘇郁程) nationality if he is confirmed to have represented China in the World Kendo Championships in Milan, Italy, last week, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. “We have consulted the Sports Administration and were told that athletes participating in the championships must have the nationality of the country that they represent. They must also present their passports as proof,” council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a weekly news conference. “If Su indeed represented China in the championships, we suspect that he has obtained Chinese nationality.” The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the
FATAL ILLNESS: Untreated symptoms can rapidly worsen to complications such as high fever, seizures and loss of consciousness, and can be life-threatening, a doctor said Hospitals have been reporting dozens of people with heat-related illnesses every day over the past week, given continuous high daytime temperatures, so recognizing the early signs of heatstroke is crucial in preventing serious complications, a Taipei City Hospital emergency physician said. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a heat alert for 19 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures in New Taipei City, Miaoli County and Pingtung County likely to exceed 38°C, and temperatures in 12 cities and counties likely to exceed 36°C for three days straight. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses every day from