Tweet
05/25/2009 (Taiwan News)
The country's first confirmed case of the H1N1 swine flu virus left hospital as five others were still quarantined, the Central Epidemics Command Center said on Sunday.
An Australian cruise doctor was intercepted with high fever and quarantined at the Taoyuan General Hospital on May 18 after his return from New York via Hong Kong. His wife was found free of the virus, but the doctor himself was kept inside the hospital until late Saturday.
Over the past week, five more cases were confirmed. Two young Taiwanese women who returned separately from studies in New York and San Francisco respectively, the sister of the San Francisco student, a woman who returned from a conference in the Philippines and her five-year-old daughter.
The latter forced the weeklong closure of a whole school. More than 1,700 students and teachers of the Kuangfu Elementary School in Chungho, Taipei County, will have to stay away from school from until Friday. The school was disinfected and distribution of information about the virus to neighborhood residents began yesterday.
According to tests conducted Saturday evening, the students who returned from New York and San Francisco still showed a mild positive reaction, meaning they would have to continue to take medicine and stay quarantined for a while, Shih said. It would take two more days before new tests were possible, with release from hospital only likely the following day if the results turned out to be negative for H1N1, Shih told reporters.
At his news conference, Minister Yeh said Taiwan had expressed its opposition to the World Health Organization placing the country's six flu cases under China on its website. It would not happen again, Yeh said, pointing out that after efforts from Taiwan's overseas representative offices, the WHO had listed the cases under the name "Chinese Taipei" beginning Saturday. The minister said he was not satisfied but could accept the change.
Yeh also said he would accompany President Ma Ying-jeou on this week's trip to Central America after fears about the impact of H1N1 on the region. He said special measures should be taken because the president would stop over in Los Angeles, California, one of the most affected areas. Ma's meetings with Overseas Taiwanese would have to be strictly monitored, Yeh said.
Shaking hands could be banned, while people wanting to attend the meetings should have their temperature measured first, he said. Ma is scheduled to leave on May 26 for a trip to Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador before arriving back in Taiwan on June 4 by way of Seattle. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had bought 30,000 masks to send to its employees at the representative office in Osaka in Japan's Kansai region, one of the areas worst hit by the virus. On May 20, Taiwan already sent 200,000 masks to the area for usage by residents.
http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct...7468&ctNode=45
The country's first confirmed case of the H1N1 swine flu virus left hospital as five others were still quarantined, the Central Epidemics Command Center said on Sunday.
An Australian cruise doctor was intercepted with high fever and quarantined at the Taoyuan General Hospital on May 18 after his return from New York via Hong Kong. His wife was found free of the virus, but the doctor himself was kept inside the hospital until late Saturday.
Over the past week, five more cases were confirmed. Two young Taiwanese women who returned separately from studies in New York and San Francisco respectively, the sister of the San Francisco student, a woman who returned from a conference in the Philippines and her five-year-old daughter.
The latter forced the weeklong closure of a whole school. More than 1,700 students and teachers of the Kuangfu Elementary School in Chungho, Taipei County, will have to stay away from school from until Friday. The school was disinfected and distribution of information about the virus to neighborhood residents began yesterday.
According to tests conducted Saturday evening, the students who returned from New York and San Francisco still showed a mild positive reaction, meaning they would have to continue to take medicine and stay quarantined for a while, Shih said. It would take two more days before new tests were possible, with release from hospital only likely the following day if the results turned out to be negative for H1N1, Shih told reporters.
At his news conference, Minister Yeh said Taiwan had expressed its opposition to the World Health Organization placing the country's six flu cases under China on its website. It would not happen again, Yeh said, pointing out that after efforts from Taiwan's overseas representative offices, the WHO had listed the cases under the name "Chinese Taipei" beginning Saturday. The minister said he was not satisfied but could accept the change.
Yeh also said he would accompany President Ma Ying-jeou on this week's trip to Central America after fears about the impact of H1N1 on the region. He said special measures should be taken because the president would stop over in Los Angeles, California, one of the most affected areas. Ma's meetings with Overseas Taiwanese would have to be strictly monitored, Yeh said.
Shaking hands could be banned, while people wanting to attend the meetings should have their temperature measured first, he said. Ma is scheduled to leave on May 26 for a trip to Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador before arriving back in Taiwan on June 4 by way of Seattle. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had bought 30,000 masks to send to its employees at the representative office in Osaka in Japan's Kansai region, one of the areas worst hit by the virus. On May 20, Taiwan already sent 200,000 masks to the area for usage by residents.
http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct...7468&ctNode=45
