Affected breathing again in Taiwan, elders and youth are urged to avoid traveling to China due to respiratory diseases

Taiwan’s health ministry on Thursday urged the elderly, the very young and those with weakened immune systems to avoid traveling to China due to a rise in respiratory illnesses.

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week requested China to provide detailed information on the spike, which a WHO official said was not as high as before the COVID-19 pandemic and was not unusual. Was. Or new pathogens were not discovered.Taiwan has been wary of disease outbreaks in its vast neighbor since the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which began in China and killed nearly 800 people globally in 2002–2003. China, whose government claims to democratically rule Taiwan, initially tried to conceal the outbreak. In a statement released after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Taiwan's Health Ministry said that due to the increase in respiratory diseases in China, the elderly, young children and others with weakened immunity are urged to avoid travel to mainland China, Hong Kong Avoid and do not travel. Macau unless necessary.

If travel is necessary, then people should get flu and COVID vaccinations before going to China, it added.

Shu-Ti Chiou, an epidemiologist at the Health & Sustainable Development Foundation in Taipei, said the advisory would lead the public to mistakenly believe they would not contract respiratory illnesses as long as they did not go to China.

Rajib Dasgupta, an epidemiologist and professor of community health at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, also said “travel restrictions for respiratory infections are not an effective measure for interrupting transmission”.

Some public health researchers said the travel advisory was reasonable, saying Taiwan was also likely to experience a surge in respiratory illnesses in winter and following the lifting of pandemic restrictions. “They would be cautious not to hasten it by overseas travels,” said Sung-il Cho, an epidemiologist at Seoul National University.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Wednesday that the rise in respiratory illnesses in China was a common issue faced by all countries and that Chinese authorities have it under effective control.