Lien Jih-ching (連日清), an entomologist and public health expert who helped in the effort to have the WHO in 1965 declare Taiwan to be “malaria free,” died on Wednesday.
He was 96.
Born in Taipei’s Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area, Lien’s connection with mosquito studies began at age 15 when he worked part-time at the Tropical Medicine Research Institute at what was at the time Taihoku Imperial University, now National Taiwan University.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Lien worked for Omori Nanzaburo, a Japanese entomologist, helping him to develop prevention strategies and treatments for dengue fever.
During a dengue fever outbreak in Taiwan in 1942, an estimated 5 million out of Taiwan’s population of 8 million at the time caught the disease, Lien among them.
He later said that the experience had inspired him to become an expert in mosquitoes and other insects.
Lien led a team that researched malaria prevention strategies to eradicate the disease in Taiwan.
After the WHO declaration, Lien turned his focus to dengue fever and continued to study mosquitoes, the primary vector of both diseases.
Lien is credited with the first documentation of 1 percent of all mosquito species in the world.
Tsai Kun-hsien (蔡坤憲), a professor at the National Taiwan University’s College of Public Health who worked with Lien on several overseas medical entomology missions, yesterday said that Lien never shied from his work even after contracting scrub typhus.
Even in his 80s, Lien led missions to Sao Tome and Principe, which was a diplomatic ally of Taiwan at the time, to help eradicate malaria there and train local public health personnel.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) yesterday expressed his condolences to Lien’s family.
Chen lauded Lien’s contributions to entomology, public health and medicine.
The council would ask President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to present an order of praise and commendation to honor Lien’s contribution to Taiwan and the world, Chen said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS