People aged 40 or older should undergo at least one abdominal ultrasound scan per year, the Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation said yesterday, on its 29th anniversary.
Foundation chairperson Hsu Ching-chuan (許金川) said at an event in Taipei that since the foundation was established in 1994, it has been devoted to preventing liver disease and ending the notion that liver disease is Taiwan’s “national disease.”
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis are no longer among the 10 leading causes of death in Taiwan, but about 12,000 people still die of liver disease each year, including about 7,000 due to liver cancer and about 5,000 due to cirrhosis, Hsu said.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
The liver has no pain receptors, so when people seek medical attention after symptoms emerge, it is often too late, he said.
People aged 40 or older should undergo an abdominal ultrasound scan at least once per year to detect abnormalities and get early treatment, he added.
The foundation in 2021 launched a program for abdominal ultrasound scans to be conducted at 12 hospitals to promote liver disease awareness, Hsu said.
Last month the program was expanded to 24 hospitals across the nation, including on outlying counties, he said.
Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) told the event that WHO member states have committed to eliminating viral hepatitis by 2030, while Taiwan aims to eliminate hepatitis C by 2025 and hepatitis B by 2030.
As of May, about 181,000 people had been treated for hepatitis C this year, but there are an estimated 51,000 people with the disease that have not had it diagnosed, Wu said.
A program launched in 2020 offering people aged 45 or older free testing for hepatitis B and C infection has had about 5 million participants, he said.
The event was also attended by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川), National Taiwan University (NTU) vice president Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳), NTU Hospital superintendent Ni Yen-hsuan (倪衍玄) and other public figures, as well as people who have received a liver transplant.
Retired nurse Wu Wan-yu (吳琬玉) also spoke at the event.
She was photographed administering a hepatitis B vaccine to a baby, with the image published on the cover of a government health promotion magazine in July 1984, when the government launched its program to vaccinate children born to mothers who are carriers of the hepatitis B virus.
Wu Wan-yu said that she was 24 and working at a hospital in Taichung when the photo was taken.
At the time, she did not know that the vaccine was so important, she said.
However, the efforts of the government and experts in Taiwan have significantly reduced mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B for the past 40 years, she said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS