The Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday a four-year-old girl might have been infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Lee Lung-teng (
As no probable SARS cases had been reported from last Thursday to Monday, the DOH said on Monday it expected Taiwan could be removed from the World Health Organization's list of SARS-affected areas shortly.
However, the appearance of four more probable cases of SARS yesterday has dashed the expectation. The girl was one of four new probable cases, Lee said.
Lee said the girl's father was also a probable SARS case. "The girl's father was discharged from the hospital on March 31. The girl began to experience a fever after her father returned home," Lee said.
On April 3, the girl had high fever of 38.6?C. Her doctor administered antibiotics and the medication worked well. She was discharged from the hospital last Friday, Lee said.
Lee said although the girl has recovered from her illness, the specialist team of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) tackling SARS still decided to list her as a probable case.
The team decided to list the child as a probable SARS case for three reasons. "First, she has had close contact with another SARS case [her father]. Second, she had high fever and she had pneumonia symptoms," Lee said.
Nevertheless, Huang Fu-yuan (
"The CDC had been closely observing the child even before she fell ill because she was a family member of a probable SARS case," Huang said.
Huang noted in order to efficiently contain the spread of SARS, Taiwan has imposed stricter isolation measures than required by the WHO.
The WHO recommends that all SARS cases should be put under domestic quarantine for seven days after they are discharged from hospitals because the cases might still continue to spread the disease after their recovery.
"The CDC asked all probable SARS cases discharged from hospitals to stay under home quarantine for 14 days, twice the duration demanded by the WHO," Huang said.
According to the CDC, 158 possible SARS cases have been reported as of yesterday afternoon, of which 27 are probable cases and 42 suspected cases. Seventy-nine cases have been ruled out as SARS and 10 cases are still to be verified, the CDC said.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS