The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday announced the first local case of typhoid fever this year. The patient was a woman in her 30s living in central China who was infected by eating raw seafood such as sashimi and oysters. On the same day, it was announced that 139,060 people were hospitalized for influenza-like illness last week and 7,836 people were hospitalized for the new coronavirus, both slightly lower than the previous week, but the number of severe cases and deaths was still high.
The death of 30-year-old nurse Chen Jiajia from a brain haemorrhage while working at a Chinese hospital sparked outrage after authorities refused to classify it as work-related.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this year's measles epidemic is the worst since 1991, with nearly 3,900 cases nationwide. The governor of New York can declare a state of emergency across the state, expand the scope of vaccination for medical staff, and allow nurses to order tests and pharmacists to vaccinate children over 2 years old. As of October 3, New York State had reported 108 cases, 92 of which occurred in rural areas with low vaccination rates after July 15. Neighboring Pennsylvania has more than 1,000 cases and five deaths. The state of emergency will last until November 4.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the latest epidemic situation today. Last week, there were 219 new severe cases of influenza and 44 deaths. There were 37 new local severe cases and 16 deaths of COVID-19. At present, both influenza and COVID-19 are still in the epidemic period, and the public is urged to get vaccinated as soon as possible before the Double Ten holiday.
A senior prosecutor posted on a social platform that failure to effectively assist drug addicts in detoxification will lead to the spread of AIDS through shared needles, a waste of national resources, family disability, and damage to the rights of minor children. Therefore, we cannot avoid studying how to help addicts truly detoxify and return to society. He stressed that drug detoxification is essentially a professional issue in the medical and public health fields, rather than a purely legal issue, and cited a 2015 study by the Judicial College of the Ministry of Justice which pointed out that an appropriate dose of methadone maintenance therapy can relieve cravings and withdrawal symptoms, restore cognitive function, reduce drug use and needle sharing, and prevent infectious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis C. This discussion echoes the controversy surrounding Shen Boyang’s discussion of foreign harm reduction measures 12 years ago, and the attack and defense between the government and the opposition continues to spread.
According to data from the British Office for National Statistics, the number of e-cigarette users in the UK will reach 5.4 million in 2025, surpassing traditional smokers for the second consecutive year. People aged 25 to 34 have become the main users. Although e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional cigarettes, the British National Health Service still reminds them that they have long-term health risks.
The Taipei City Health Bureau issued a statement on the methadone and clean needle harm reduction policies, emphasizing that they are public health strategies and do not encourage drug use. Mayor Chiang Wanan is expected to inspect the Kunming Prevention and Treatment Center of Taipei Municipal United Hospital in the morning to understand the current status of the implementation of the Mesa Winter Plan.
The Food and Drug Administration announced the results of a border inspection. More than 330,000 kilograms of potatoes imported by Huayuan Foods from the United States were returned or destroyed due to excessive solanine. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration also discovered a batch of cabbage imported from Vietnam that contained pesticide residues that violated regulations, and has increased the intensity of sampling inspections against illegal businesses.
The Taipei City Health Bureau refutes claims by medical professionals that methadol is a second-level drug, pointing out that methadol is an oral controlled drug and implements a drug-addicted AIDS harm reduction program. The reporter's verification showed that methadone is actually a second-level drug and a second-level controlled drug under the "Drug Harm Prevention and Control Ordinance". The Health Bureau emphasizes that the needle cleaning program is only to reduce the risk of infection from shared needles. Possession and use of drugs are still illegal and there is no criminal immunity.
Penghu County's resident medical helicopter Lingtian Airlines carried out three aeromedical evacuation missions in a single day on October 5, involving patients with subdural hematoma, acute leukemia and lupus erythematosus with low platelets. One of them had to be diverted to Tainan Airport to transfer to an ambulance due to night construction at Kaohsiung Airport, highlighting the reliance on backup aircraft for medical evacuation to outlying islands.
An 85-year-old grandma surnamed Chen from Taichung City suffered an anterior dislocation of her intraocular lens due to a fall, and her right eye went black. Dr. Yang Qilan from the Department of Ophthalmology at Children's General Hospital performed an operation to remove the intraocular lens and fix it with scleral sutures, but her vision recovered. The doctor pointed out that lens dislocation is divided into anterior dislocation and posterior dislocation. The risk of anterior dislocation is higher. It is recommended that those with a capsular tension ring can reduce the probability of dislocation.
Nephrologist Liu Chengen pointed out that methadone substitution therapy uses legal, long-lasting and stable prescriptions to bring addicts back from the black market and restore their daily life functions. He also emphasized that the provision and recycling of clean needles is the line of defense for public health. He refuted the Lanying’s questioning of Shen Boyang’s past article that encouraged drug abuse, arguing that this was an unfair smear on the two decades of hard work of public health workers.
Moscow downplayed reports that a laboratory technician died of plague in Siberia's Irkutsk region, stating postmortem tests did not detect the disease, while the United States said it is closely monitoring the situation after reports linked the death of 28-year-old Darya Shipilova to a possible lab accident involving a broken test tube.
Moscow downplayed reports of a laboratory technician's death from plague in Siberia, stating postmortem tests did not detect the disease, while the U.S. said it is closely monitoring the situation after media linked her death to a possible lab accident involving a broken test tube.
Shipilova, a female researcher at the Serekhov Institute of Epidemic Prevention in Irkutsk Region, Russia, accidentally broke a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen on September 25 and died of illness on October 2. The incident triggered a large-scale local quarantine and official information blockade.
Dr. Shen Mingzhong, a rheumatologist and immunologist, pointed out that the focus of a high-protein diet is to eat enough, eat the right foods, and from diverse sources, rather than blindly ingesting too much. The recommended daily protein intake for middle-aged and elderly people is 1.2-1.6g/kg. A palm-sized portion of protein source per meal can provide about 20-30g. People with abnormal kidney function should adjust according to their individual conditions, and general fitness recommendations cannot be applied.
Chinese doctors from Shenzhen and Hong Kong have performed an unprecedented in-womb surgery to remove a fast-growing foetal chest tumour, saving an unborn child.
The National Federation of Medical Doctors Associations of the Republic of China and the Taiwan Psychiatric Association jointly issued a statement emphasizing that drug prevention should be based on medical evidence and public interests, calling for policy discussions to return to professionalism, protect children and children, and support addiction treatment and harm reduction measures, and should not be reduced to political party election offensive and defensive tools.
At the 2026 Collaborative Innovation Conference on Disease Prevention and Treatment Research and Achievement Transformation, many academicians and experts pointed out that nanocarrier technology can improve the accuracy and safety of cardiovascular disease treatment, and the application of AI in tumor immunotherapy provides new possibilities. They also emphasized the need to strengthen the integration of industry, academia, research and medicine, break through pilot bottlenecks, and build an open innovation ecosystem to solve clinical pain points.
The "White Paper on the Quality of Life of Gastric Cancer Patients in China" shows that the diagnosis and treatment rate of early-stage gastric cancer in my country has been lower than 10% for a long time. Nearly 70% of patients seek medical treatment due to symptoms, of which about 40% delay seeking medical treatment. Stage III and IV patients account for 55.2% at the time of diagnosis. Experts call for accurate screening of high-risk groups, promotion of biomarker testing and multidisciplinary comprehensive intervention to improve early diagnosis rate and quality of life.
Luo Yijun, director of the Department of Disease Control and Prevention, said that the AIDS epidemic has dropped significantly after Taiwan promoted harm reduction strategies. The number of people infected with AIDS due to injection drugs every year has dropped to less than 20. He also clarified that there is a strict management mechanism for the community distribution of clean needles, and that methadone replacement therapy must be carried out in medical institutions. Shen Boyang's so-called community center distribution of drugs needs to be clarified by himself.
CCTV's "Weekly Quality Report" revealed that some takeout restaurants in Lijiang, Yunnan Province have problems such as "bright kitchens and bright stoves" that are not worthy of the name and unqualified kitchen hygiene. The market supervision department of Lijiang City suspended operations for rectification of the four business entities involved and opened a case for investigation. They held special interviews with the online catering platform and decided to launch a "centralized rectification of take-out food safety" in the city from now on, focusing on rectifying food safety issues in take-out shops without dine-in, urban villages and backstreet alley catering merchants.
Hong Kong's Kai Tak Hospital, built on the former Kai Tak airport site, will begin its first phase of operation on Monday after more than a decade of planning. With 2,400 beds and a gross floor area of 500,000 square metres, it will become the city's largest public hospital, gradually taking over services from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and featuring 37 operating theatres, a 24-hour A&E department, and Hong Kong's largest pharmacy with an automated dispensing system.
