Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/05
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, March 5 (CNA) Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣

丙煌) said Saturday that the number of B-type influenza cases is on the rise, which could lead to another outbreak, while Taiwan has already been battling a severe A-type flu outbreak.

Chiang said the health authorities are paying close attention to the development of the new cases, which have accounted for some 20 percent of flu patients since the flu season peaked in early February.

The share of B-type flu patients has been unusually high this time, since they previously accounted for only less than 10 percent of the total cases, explained National Taiwan University Hospital pediatrician Huang Li-min (黃立民).     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-02
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said on Wednesday that it will coordinate and designate emergency hospitals according to front-line situations in times of epidemics, such as flu, to relax crowdedness at the hospital emergency rooms across Taiwan.

The Taiwan Society of Emergency Medicine (TSEM) paid a visit to the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) on Wednesday, during which TSEM Secretary General Yen Zui-shen said that there were at the moment more than 100 patients waiting for beds at emergency rooms across Taiwan, a number very different from the 1,010 beds the MOHW said of available at intensive care units in the country now.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/28
By: Yang Sze-jui, Wu Che-hao, Chen Cheng-wei and S.C. Chang

Taipei, Feb. 28 (CNA) Over 12,000 chickens and geese have been culled at

two poultry farms in central and southern Taiwan after health officials confirmed bird flu infections at those farms, local government officials said Sunday.

Tung Meng-chih (董孟治) , director of the Animal Disease Control Center of Changhua County, said more than 10,000 locally bred chickens were destroyed at a poultry farm in Dacheng Township on Sunday after a high percentage of them were confirmed to be infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 Type B strain.

This was the fifth outbreak of bird flu in the county this year and the first since the start of the Lunar New Year on Feb. 8, Tung said.

At a goose farm in Liuying District in Tainan, 2,443 geese were culled Sunday after some of the dead geese tested positive for H5 bird flu virus infection, officials with the city’s Animal Health and Protection Office said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-02-28
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The number of severe flu cases around Taiwan is expected to decline over the next two weeks because the influenza epidemic is waning, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Sunday.

A total of 961 severe influenza-related cases have been recorded by health authorities since last July, representing the most severe flu season over the past five years, according to the CDC.

A total of 69 of those patients have died of influenza-related illnesses during the epidemic, said CDC Director-General Steve Kuo, citing CDC statistics.

Local media have carried stories about a sharp increase in the number of flu-stricken people seeking treatment at hospital emergency rooms last week, straining the country’s medical resources.     [FULL  STORY]

CIDRAP News
Date: Feb 23, 2016
By: Lisa Schnirring

Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Nigeria reported new highly pathogenic avian

influenza detections, all involving different strains and signaling ongoing activity in poultry.

Hong Kong’s agriculture ministry today announced that the H5N6 virus has been detected in a chicken carcass that washed ashore at Tai O, a fishing town on the southwest part of Lantau Island, raising suspicion that local people might be violating a ban on raising backyard poultry.

Second recent H5N6 detection
Tests revealed H5N6 in the carcass on Feb 18, but the agriculture ministry said there are no poultry farms in the 3-km area around where the chicken was found. The ministry said the backyard poultry ban has been in place since 2006 and that its staff will inspect the area around where the bird was found to see if there are any illegal poultry.

Today’s announcement closely follows the ministry’s Feb 19 report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) about a positive H5N6 finding in one of four chicken carcasses that washed up on the shore of a beach at Tuen Mun on Feb 14.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/22
By: Lung Pei-ning and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Feb. 22 (CNA) Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on

Monday issued advance notice that it will ban partially hydrogenated oils — the primary dietary source of hazardous trans fats — in food products starting in 2018.

Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation in November 2015 to ban artificial trans fats from processed foods, with violators facing fines of up to NT$3 million (US$90,340).

Under the revised law, food manufacturers will have a three-year grace period to eliminate the cooking fat from their products.

According to standard administrative procedures, the FDA was required to give advance notice of the ban in early 2016 before a full ban is confirmed.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: February 3, 2016

A central command center was established by Centers for Disease

Control under the ROC Ministry of Health and Welfare Feb. 2 in Taipei City, representing part of the government’s response to preventing a Zika virus outbreak in Taiwan.

The center is tasked with coordinating disease monitoring measures conducted by the administrations of Health Promotion and National Health Insurance. It also serves as a research platform by leading local gynecologists, infectious disease physicians and neurologists on the Zika virus.

One of the first decisions taken by the center was to elevate the Zika virus from a Category Two Notifiable Infectious Disease to Category Five, along with Ebola and MERS-CoV viruses.     [FULL  STORY]