People should wash their hands and cook food thoroughly during Mid-Autumn Festival barbeques amid a surge of enterovirus infections, a top health official said yesterday.
Taiwan has reported an increase in enterovirus cases, including norovirus infections, at the end of summer, when the transmission season has typically ended, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper).
The situation might be linked to travel and social gatherings increasing after the COVID-19 pandemic, Lo said, adding that 74 groups of students had been sent home during the first week of classes in the new semester in a bid to prevent enterovirus outbreaks.
Photo: Chen Yu-jui, Taipei Times
About 14,000 enterovirus cases are being reported per week and the rate is unlikely to drop due to increased risks of community spread during the Mid-Autumn Festival, he said.
The CDC is especially concerned about norovirus, which has been the cause of more than half of the cases in the past four months, Lo said, adding that enteroviruses are resistant to alchohol and can only be killed by washing with soap.
Norovirus is known as the “Ferrari” of viruses at the CDC for its ability to rip through communities with a minute amount of fecal contamination, he said.
People should make sure shellfish are cooked properly, because improperly barbecued oysters have been linked to 47 norovirus outbreaks in the past six months, he said.
Oysters should be cooked to a core temperature of 66°C to neutralize norovirus, meaning they should remain on the heat for three to five minutes after their shells have opened, he said.
Separately, newborns and elderly people would be eligible for subsidized influenza and COVID-19 vaccines starting next month, Lo said, adding that other groups would be eligible after that.
Taiwan has access to more types of flu vaccines than ever, with products from Adimmune, Sanofi, BioPharm, Medigen and GSK available, he said.
The vaccines confer good protection against the H1N1A and H3N2A subtypes of influenza A, as well as several subtypes of influenza B, including H3N2, which has been reported in Thailand, Lo said.
People are twice as likely to have severe symptoms or die from COVID-19 than the common flu, despite significant progress in reducing the danger posed by SARS-CoV-2, he said.
Taiwan offers subsidized COVID-19 vaccines, as the disease remains a threat to public health, he said, adding that jabs designed to counter the JN.1 variant would be available from December.
People should be inoculated against influenza and COVID-19 before expected flare-ups of the diseases in November and December, he said, adding that masks alone do not provide adequate protection.
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed “grave concerns” after Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) reiterated the city-state’s opposition to “Taiwanese independence” during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強). In Singapore on Saturday, Wong and Li discussed cross-strait developments, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Prime Minister Wong reiterated that Singapore has a clear and consistent ‘one China’ policy and is opposed to Taiwan independence,” it said. MOFA responded that it is an objective fact and a common understanding shared by many that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent, sovereign nation, with world-leading
‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to
RSS