http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/28/china.who.reut/index.html?iref=newssearch
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China has sent a notice to the World Health Organization defending its food safety standards and repeating what is becoming a standard line that more than 99 percent of its food exports are up to standard.
A series of scandals involving substandard Chinese exports ranging from pet food and toothpaste to toys has put increasing pressure on Beijing to clean up its manufacturing sector.
The notice, posted on the Health Ministry's Web site (www.moh.gov.cn) on Wednesday but sent one week ago also said that China was willing to cooperate globally to tackle the problem.
"The Chinese government is willing to increase information exchange and communication with international society and other countries in line with its attitude of openness and transparency," the notice said.
"We hope the World Health Organization gives support and help to China's food safety work and also reports on the situation to member states."
The notice detailed the actions and laws China has adopted to ensure food safety, explained the roles of the various watchdog bodies and promised to "strike hard" against illegal behavior by companies.
"The Chinese government pays great attention to friendly cooperation in the food safety field with other countries, regions and international bodies, and emphasizes drawing on the experience of advanced global management and examination and testing technology," the ministry said.
"This will push the raising of the general quality of China's food."
It said overall quality of farm products had increased hugely.
"At present ,more than 94 percent of vegetables meet chemical residue standards," the notice said.
A spokeswoman for the WHO in Beijing said though it had not requested the Health Ministry's report, it welcomed it.
"We have been working pretty closely with the government to strengthen food safety in China," said spokeswoman Joanna Brent. "While there's nothing specifically new in it, it does shows that China has recognized it has a challenge and is working to address it. We're pretty positive about that."
2007年9月23日 星期日
Chinese product scares prompt US fears
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6275758.stm
More products are being imported to the US from China than ever before - but a series of scares has left some wondering whether they are safe.
From pet food to toothpaste, tyres to jewellery and seafood to toys, questions have been raised over the reliability of Chinese-made goods.
As the death of a child who swallowed a magnet from a Chinese-made toy last year and the illness of others who have consumed contaminated food suggest, the risks presented by unsafe goods can be great.
In Panama, the deaths of some 51 people have been blamed on cough syrup tainted with Chinese-made diethylene glycol, commonly used in antifreeze. The same chemical has been found in toothpastes from China sold in the US and Canada.
Earlier this year, more than 100 brands of cat and dog food were pulled from the shelves in the US after pets died from eating food contaminated with the chemical melamine, traced back to wheat gluten from China.
With Chinese imports totalling $288bn last year - nearly triple the figure of five years ago - is enough being done to protect consumers?
'Time needed'
The execution for corruption on Tuesday of the former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, suggests Beijing is keen to show it is taking the problem seriously.
But part of the problem is that the speed of China's expansion into the global export market has not been matched by the growth of a countrywide regulatory infrastructure.
The Chinese authorities say they are making efforts to improve supervision of safety standards, but that it will take time for them to catch up with the West.
American officials whose job it is to ensure the safety of imported products acknowledge there are problems - but say they are doing all they can to identify suspect goods.
For example, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently imposed a nationwide hold on the import of five types of farmed fish and seafood from China.
Some shipments were found to have traces of antibiotics and disinfectants that are banned in US fish production. Other inspections uncovered fish products described as "filthy" or tainted with salmonella and pesticides.
The US imports about a fifth of its seafood from China.
'Out of nowhere'
Another danger comes when contaminants which would not normally be tested for end up in the food chain - such as melamine, a chemical used in plastic products which caused kidney failure in pets.
David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food safety, said: "The bottom line message is to focus the testing on areas where we have identified problems. We cannot even begin to test on everything.
"There are certain things we can predict are going to be a problem because we've seen it before, other countries have had the problem... but sometimes things come out of nowhere, completely unexpected. The melamine was an example of that."
Meanwhile the FDA has to juggle the need to avoid inaccurate advice or over-reaction with the desire to warn people of a potential risk as quickly as possible.
"I would always like us to react faster. We react as quickly as we can on the information we have," Mr Acheson said.
The FDA does not have the resources to send lots of inspectors into China, Mr Acheson added, so is working with the Chinese authorities to address the issues.
'Very scary'
Of course, China is not the only country to experience food safety problems.
US-grown spinach last year caused an E.coli outbreak that left one woman dead and some 200 others unwell. The FDA has previously halted imports of Mexican cantaloupes because of salmonella.
The difference, however, seems to be the frequency with which Chinese products are being pulled up.
Dietician Ruth Frechman, a California-based member of the American Dietetic Association, says the recent run of scares has heightened people's anxieties.
While no clients have yet asked her for advice on avoiding Chinese products, she says, one has started making her own dog food following the pet food alert.
The chief problem is that food labels do not identify where all the ingredients have come from - and even restaurants and wholesalers may not know, Ms Frechman said.
"It's very scary for consumers and really as a consumer you have no idea that the product is even coming from China... so there's really not a lot the consumer can do," she said.
Toxic lead
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which monitors the safety of imported non-food goods, says it has seen increased concern among consumers.
Its officials are seeking to co-operate with their Chinese counterparts, with CPSC inspectors travelling to factories in Beijing, Shanghai and big manufacturing regions.
"The first step for us is to educate all of those people who we are working with on US safety standards. Many of those standards have saved lives," CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said.
"Our goal is to see as much progress as we can - and what that might mean here for us in the US is fewer recalls of Chinese-made products."
Overall, at least 60% of recalls issued by the agency since last October have involved goods from China.
In the first week of July alone, they included hammock stands, children's toys and metal jewellery, all of which were potentially dangerous.
One of the biggest recalls, in June, involved some 1.5m Thomas and Friends toy trains containing lead paint, which can be toxic to young children if swallowed.
Mr Wolfson urges consumers, particularly worried parents, to subscribe to the CPSC's free e-mail alerts for the latest advice.
Success story
A lesson may lie in the approach taken by the fireworks industry, which has focused on education and stringent product testing within China.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, standards for Chinese-made fireworks were so low that as many as 75% failed US safety tests.
To tackle the problem, US importers were encouraged to pay for a testing operation set up in China - the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory (AFSL) - to monitor production straight from the assembly line.
At least three-quarters of US fireworks importers are signed up to the scheme and the lab has about 50 technicians in China.
Since 1994, injury rates among US consumers have dropped by more than two-thirds and sales of fireworks have increased greatly. About 99% of the fireworks used in the US come from China.
John Rogers, executive director of the AFSL, said: "It's had a very positive impact for the American public, for the government that regulates fireworks and obviously for the companies."
He admits that initially Chinese factories "weren't happy" about the AFSL's checks but, as Chinese-language guidelines were produced to help them meet US requirements, attitudes changed.
"What the manufacturers understand is that safer, better quality fireworks translates into bigger sales, so now they like what we do," he said.
"I think that every industry that imports products from China could very well benefit from this kind of a programme."
Of course, the majority of goods imported from China are perfectly safe - but until standards improve across the board, US consumers must rely on officials to sift out potential hazards before they cause harm.
More products are being imported to the US from China than ever before - but a series of scares has left some wondering whether they are safe.
From pet food to toothpaste, tyres to jewellery and seafood to toys, questions have been raised over the reliability of Chinese-made goods.
As the death of a child who swallowed a magnet from a Chinese-made toy last year and the illness of others who have consumed contaminated food suggest, the risks presented by unsafe goods can be great.
In Panama, the deaths of some 51 people have been blamed on cough syrup tainted with Chinese-made diethylene glycol, commonly used in antifreeze. The same chemical has been found in toothpastes from China sold in the US and Canada.
Earlier this year, more than 100 brands of cat and dog food were pulled from the shelves in the US after pets died from eating food contaminated with the chemical melamine, traced back to wheat gluten from China.
With Chinese imports totalling $288bn last year - nearly triple the figure of five years ago - is enough being done to protect consumers?
'Time needed'
The execution for corruption on Tuesday of the former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, suggests Beijing is keen to show it is taking the problem seriously.
But part of the problem is that the speed of China's expansion into the global export market has not been matched by the growth of a countrywide regulatory infrastructure.
The Chinese authorities say they are making efforts to improve supervision of safety standards, but that it will take time for them to catch up with the West.
American officials whose job it is to ensure the safety of imported products acknowledge there are problems - but say they are doing all they can to identify suspect goods.
For example, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently imposed a nationwide hold on the import of five types of farmed fish and seafood from China.
Some shipments were found to have traces of antibiotics and disinfectants that are banned in US fish production. Other inspections uncovered fish products described as "filthy" or tainted with salmonella and pesticides.
The US imports about a fifth of its seafood from China.
'Out of nowhere'
Another danger comes when contaminants which would not normally be tested for end up in the food chain - such as melamine, a chemical used in plastic products which caused kidney failure in pets.
David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food safety, said: "The bottom line message is to focus the testing on areas where we have identified problems. We cannot even begin to test on everything.
"There are certain things we can predict are going to be a problem because we've seen it before, other countries have had the problem... but sometimes things come out of nowhere, completely unexpected. The melamine was an example of that."
Meanwhile the FDA has to juggle the need to avoid inaccurate advice or over-reaction with the desire to warn people of a potential risk as quickly as possible.
"I would always like us to react faster. We react as quickly as we can on the information we have," Mr Acheson said.
The FDA does not have the resources to send lots of inspectors into China, Mr Acheson added, so is working with the Chinese authorities to address the issues.
'Very scary'
Of course, China is not the only country to experience food safety problems.
US-grown spinach last year caused an E.coli outbreak that left one woman dead and some 200 others unwell. The FDA has previously halted imports of Mexican cantaloupes because of salmonella.
The difference, however, seems to be the frequency with which Chinese products are being pulled up.
Dietician Ruth Frechman, a California-based member of the American Dietetic Association, says the recent run of scares has heightened people's anxieties.
While no clients have yet asked her for advice on avoiding Chinese products, she says, one has started making her own dog food following the pet food alert.
The chief problem is that food labels do not identify where all the ingredients have come from - and even restaurants and wholesalers may not know, Ms Frechman said.
"It's very scary for consumers and really as a consumer you have no idea that the product is even coming from China... so there's really not a lot the consumer can do," she said.
Toxic lead
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which monitors the safety of imported non-food goods, says it has seen increased concern among consumers.
Its officials are seeking to co-operate with their Chinese counterparts, with CPSC inspectors travelling to factories in Beijing, Shanghai and big manufacturing regions.
"The first step for us is to educate all of those people who we are working with on US safety standards. Many of those standards have saved lives," CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said.
"Our goal is to see as much progress as we can - and what that might mean here for us in the US is fewer recalls of Chinese-made products."
Overall, at least 60% of recalls issued by the agency since last October have involved goods from China.
In the first week of July alone, they included hammock stands, children's toys and metal jewellery, all of which were potentially dangerous.
One of the biggest recalls, in June, involved some 1.5m Thomas and Friends toy trains containing lead paint, which can be toxic to young children if swallowed.
Mr Wolfson urges consumers, particularly worried parents, to subscribe to the CPSC's free e-mail alerts for the latest advice.
Success story
A lesson may lie in the approach taken by the fireworks industry, which has focused on education and stringent product testing within China.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, standards for Chinese-made fireworks were so low that as many as 75% failed US safety tests.
To tackle the problem, US importers were encouraged to pay for a testing operation set up in China - the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory (AFSL) - to monitor production straight from the assembly line.
At least three-quarters of US fireworks importers are signed up to the scheme and the lab has about 50 technicians in China.
Since 1994, injury rates among US consumers have dropped by more than two-thirds and sales of fireworks have increased greatly. About 99% of the fireworks used in the US come from China.
John Rogers, executive director of the AFSL, said: "It's had a very positive impact for the American public, for the government that regulates fireworks and obviously for the companies."
He admits that initially Chinese factories "weren't happy" about the AFSL's checks but, as Chinese-language guidelines were produced to help them meet US requirements, attitudes changed.
"What the manufacturers understand is that safer, better quality fireworks translates into bigger sales, so now they like what we do," he said.
"I think that every industry that imports products from China could very well benefit from this kind of a programme."
Of course, the majority of goods imported from China are perfectly safe - but until standards improve across the board, US consumers must rely on officials to sift out potential hazards before they cause harm.
China cracks down on food safety
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6638113.stm
Last Updated: Wednesday, 9 May 2007, 11:49 GMT 12:49 UK
China has pledged to clean up its tainted food and drug industry after a series of safety scares that have aroused global concern.
The announcement comes as two company managers were detained, accused of adding melamine to food additives.
The contaminated ingredient used in pet food led to the death of a number of cats and dogs, US inspectors allege.
Unregulated drugs have also been a concern. China's top drugs regulator is to go on trial charged with corruption.
State media said the trial of Zheng Xiaoyu, sacked in 2005 as head of the State Food and Drug Administration, would open this month.
He is accused of taking large bribes to approve untested medicine.
His case prompted the government to review the licences granted to around 170,000 medicines approved during his tenure.
Standards overhaul
China's State Council, or Cabinet, said the nationwide crackdown on woefully corrupt practices in the country's drug and food industry would compel companies to adopt "standards used in food-importing countries".
They also pledged to test products made in animal feed and food for humans, including cooking oil, flour, beverages and baby food.
Melamine has no nutritional value but because it is rich in nitrogen, it makes food that uses it an ingredient appear to have more protein than it actually does and so meet required contractual obligations.
It is illegal to add melamine to food or animal feed in the US.
The two firms accused of exporting melamine-spiked food additives were named as Binzhou Futian Biology Technology and Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company.
Both firms have denied any wrongdoing.
Officials from the US Food and Agriculture department have arrived in China to help investigate how the melamine compound got into the batch of feed that killed pets in the US.
They say Washington has considered a ban on imports of wheat gluten and rice protein from China.
Last Updated: Wednesday, 9 May 2007, 11:49 GMT 12:49 UK
China has pledged to clean up its tainted food and drug industry after a series of safety scares that have aroused global concern.
The announcement comes as two company managers were detained, accused of adding melamine to food additives.
The contaminated ingredient used in pet food led to the death of a number of cats and dogs, US inspectors allege.
Unregulated drugs have also been a concern. China's top drugs regulator is to go on trial charged with corruption.
State media said the trial of Zheng Xiaoyu, sacked in 2005 as head of the State Food and Drug Administration, would open this month.
He is accused of taking large bribes to approve untested medicine.
His case prompted the government to review the licences granted to around 170,000 medicines approved during his tenure.
Standards overhaul
China's State Council, or Cabinet, said the nationwide crackdown on woefully corrupt practices in the country's drug and food industry would compel companies to adopt "standards used in food-importing countries".
They also pledged to test products made in animal feed and food for humans, including cooking oil, flour, beverages and baby food.
Melamine has no nutritional value but because it is rich in nitrogen, it makes food that uses it an ingredient appear to have more protein than it actually does and so meet required contractual obligations.
It is illegal to add melamine to food or animal feed in the US.
The two firms accused of exporting melamine-spiked food additives were named as Binzhou Futian Biology Technology and Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company.
Both firms have denied any wrongdoing.
Officials from the US Food and Agriculture department have arrived in China to help investigate how the melamine compound got into the batch of feed that killed pets in the US.
They say Washington has considered a ban on imports of wheat gluten and rice protein from China.
China food safety head executed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6286698.stm
The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
He was convicted of taking 6.5m yuan ($850,000; £425,400) in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.
The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths.
China has been criticised over a number of recent cases involving tainted goods, and correspondents say Zheng had become a symbol of the crisis.
Zheng had appealed against his sentence, arguing that it was "too severe" and saying he had confessed his crimes and co-operated with police.
But his appeal, heard in mid-June, was rejected shortly afterwards.
Toxic chemicals
Zheng, who headed the administration from 1998 to 2005, was found guilty of accepting bribes from firms to register their products without making them undergo the necessary checks.
Following his sacking, the Chinese government announced an urgent review of about 170,000 medical licences that were awarded during his tenure at the agency.
Zheng's sentence was seen as unusually harsh for such a senior figure, but the BBC's Dan Griffiths in Beijing says the government hopes the execution shows it is getting to grips with the crisis.
However, food and drug safety standards vary widely across the country and reform will be a major challenge, our correspondent adds.
At a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday, the food and drug agency admitted it had a huge job ahead to improve its supervision of safety standards.
"As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late and its foundations are weak," spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said.
"Therefore, the food and drug safety situation is not something we can be optimistic about."
She said Zheng Xiaoyu's case had "brought shame" on the department, adding that anyone who abused their power would be punished.
Chinese officials have already acknowledged that the country could face social unrest and a tarnished image abroad unless improvements are made.
Dozens of people have died in China because of poor quality or fake food and drugs, sparking widespread international fears about the safety of Chinese exports.
Thirteen babies died of malnutrition in 2005 after being fed powdered milk that had no nutritional value.
US inspectors have blamed exported Chinese pet food ingredients, contaminated with melamine, for the deaths of cats and dogs in North America.
And they recently halted shipments of toothpaste from China to investigate reports that they may be contaminated with toxic chemicals.
The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
He was convicted of taking 6.5m yuan ($850,000; £425,400) in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.
The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths.
China has been criticised over a number of recent cases involving tainted goods, and correspondents say Zheng had become a symbol of the crisis.
Zheng had appealed against his sentence, arguing that it was "too severe" and saying he had confessed his crimes and co-operated with police.
But his appeal, heard in mid-June, was rejected shortly afterwards.
Toxic chemicals
Zheng, who headed the administration from 1998 to 2005, was found guilty of accepting bribes from firms to register their products without making them undergo the necessary checks.
Following his sacking, the Chinese government announced an urgent review of about 170,000 medical licences that were awarded during his tenure at the agency.
Zheng's sentence was seen as unusually harsh for such a senior figure, but the BBC's Dan Griffiths in Beijing says the government hopes the execution shows it is getting to grips with the crisis.
However, food and drug safety standards vary widely across the country and reform will be a major challenge, our correspondent adds.
At a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday, the food and drug agency admitted it had a huge job ahead to improve its supervision of safety standards.
"As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late and its foundations are weak," spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said.
"Therefore, the food and drug safety situation is not something we can be optimistic about."
She said Zheng Xiaoyu's case had "brought shame" on the department, adding that anyone who abused their power would be punished.
Chinese officials have already acknowledged that the country could face social unrest and a tarnished image abroad unless improvements are made.
Dozens of people have died in China because of poor quality or fake food and drugs, sparking widespread international fears about the safety of Chinese exports.
Thirteen babies died of malnutrition in 2005 after being fed powdered milk that had no nutritional value.
US inspectors have blamed exported Chinese pet food ingredients, contaminated with melamine, for the deaths of cats and dogs in North America.
And they recently halted shipments of toothpaste from China to investigate reports that they may be contaminated with toxic chemicals.
2007年9月18日 星期二
第一期英文翻譯稿
World Rabies Day Knocks at the World Chen, Chih-Ping
September 8th , 2007 is World Rabies Day. WHO associates with Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services(HCPHES), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to raise the public awareness about the current worldwide rabies situation and its prevention through vaccines.
Rabies is infected through animals or patients with rabies infection since their saliva carry the virus. Rabies virus enters human bodies from those infected saliva by scratching and biting while sometimes via skin wound and mucosal. Thus, scratching by rabies infected animals is also dangerous and the reason is that animals will lick their feet. Rabies can transmit to any mammal. But the major infectious animals to human are cats, dogs, raccoons and bats. These animals have more chances to contact human beings especially cats and dogs while raccoons and bats are easier to encounter in the outdoor activities.
Nowadays one single person dies of rabies in every ten minutes on the world. It mainly happens in Asia and Africa especially in India and China. In fact, thanks too the current medical treatment, these people do not really have to face the death. Rabies vaccines can highly prevent the disease occurrence. On the other hand, as far as the infected mammals are concerned, the similar oral vaccines have been produced. For those animal threatened by rabies into extinction, probably this is another solution.
Although rabies is curable, still many people die of rabies on the world and the majority is children. Such a problem may not totally result from the medical problems but the accessible treatment for every possible infected person. It may result from the insufficient vaccines and the high medical price. Moreover, in China, the rapid growing of pet raising will increase the possibility of infection due to the insufficient awareness of public health, the lack of social ethics and the increase of stray dogs.
The record of rabies in Taiwan can be dated back to 1947 from Shanghai to Taiwan. After the first reported case in 1948, still some minor cases continued to happen. Then, the vaccination of pet dogs and the killing of stray dogs had been launched. Since 1959, human rabies no longer occurred. After January 1961, animal rabies no longer occurred as well. Taiwan so far is non-epidemic area. Only in 2002, one imported case from China was reported. Thus, the principal threat in Taiwan so far is from imported infection. Health inspection and quarantine will be the main prevention. However, due to the serious trafficking between Taiwan and China, there are still relatively huge chances to transmit the disease from imported cases or the origin of infection.
The important mission of World Rabies Day is to appeal the public awareness and attention to rabies and to make everyone understand the pathogenic mechanism and situation of such an exiting disease. Through the prevention and complete treatment, rabies is expected to become a noun in the history.
Data resources:
1. http://www.worldrabiesday.org/index_en.php
2. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2007/world_rabies_day/en/index.html
3. http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8023437
4. http://www.cdc.gov.tw/index_info_info.asp?data_id=848
5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A673599
6. http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/aug07/070815l.asp
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3235830.stm
The Unsolved Problems of Rabies in China Lee, Fang-Ying
Rabies is globally widespread especially in Asia, the major infectious area of rabies and death cases. Currently the incidence rate of rabies in China is only second to India, the second highest on the world while the difficulty in tackling rabies in both countries is slightly different. According to the statistics, in the first half of this year, 1400 people are infected rabies while about 1100 people die in China. Thus, after Taiwan initiated the small three links in Kinmen, the pandemic information in China should keep a more precise eye.
Rabies always stands for top three pandemics with high death rate in China. Facing this situation, the Chinese government does not really take some actions. For examples, every province has set up the regulation of pet raising and issued the permit of pet raising. However, the problem of rabies in China still remains unresolved. Where does the problem come from?
First, though the registration of the pet raising permit is regulated, the registration fee is too costly. For example, in Guanzhou, the registration fee is 10,000NTD? or RMB? and 6000 NTD or RMB is paid for annual inspection. Thus, some pet keepers are speculated and keep the ‘illegal’ dogs without applying for the permit.
Second, the quality of vaccines is unstable and the vaccination is not completed. Rabies vaccination is the most effective prevention from the disease. Selecting the most qualified rabies vaccines is the priority. However, not only the amount of the vaccines prepared in China is insufficient but also some fake vaccines killed people. Hence, Ministry of Health in PRC and State Food and Drug Administration issued the emergent notice to enhance the control and supervision of rabies vaccines and to stop the unexamined vaccines entering the operating sector. However, in the end of July, this year, one case of fake drug was investigated in HeiLongJiang Province, China including the fake rabies vaccines.
Third, due to the increasing amount of pet dogs and the stray dogs in the suburb and rural areas, it is hard to collect data and to control the exact amount of dogs and the situation. This makes the public lack of awareness including the government.
‘As far as I understand, rabies is not increasing in China. China is a huge country. It is normal that some cases appear in rural areas.’stated Mr. Jiang Zuojun, vice minister of Ministry of Health in a press conference.
Additionally, due to the lack of professional management and detention centers, people do not know where to apply for the permit. Even though there are many illegal dogs, no one appeals and even no one deals with it. Under the circumstance of the unorganized management, and the ignorance of the regulation, the related regulation is like a blank sheet.
From those above mentioned problems, China should change the policy toward the decrease of rabies. Currently the Chinese government usually uses the so-called management, vaccination and killing to deal with stray dogs. However, it is not successful and many pet dogs are forced to or mistaken to be killed. This appeals many objections from animal protection groups. In fact, the brutal killing should not be launched but the principal management to tackle the rabies since it always depends on keepers’ determination and social ethics. The most principal reason for dog trouble is that irresponsible dog keepers do not keep their own dogs well. Thus, the legislation restricts those keepers. What important is that the legislation must be enforced precisely. There was no special legislation in the past. However, many loopholes happen because of the loose enforcement. For example, huge dogs are transferred to somewhere else during the check. After the check is finished, they can be moved back. In addition, some packaged policy should be launched to lower down the registration fee and annual checking fee, to manage the dog market, to strengthen the animal disease prevention and the function of control center, to provide free rabies vaccines or to launch pet-raising regulatory group in order to supervise dog keepers in the neighborhood. In conclusion, promoting civilized pet raising for keepers without bothering some other else and following the regulation will be the efficient and principal ways to tackle rabies.
Data resources:
http://www.39kf.com/focus/zt/Rabies/
http://www.cdc.gov.tw/
The Booming India. The Highest rabies Infection Wu, Chia-Cheng
Vaccination and animal control project can prevent from rabies 100%. However, India is still highly dangerous for rabies. Due to the expensive vaccines and medicine, time-consuming and painful vaccination treatment and large amount of stray dogs suffering from rabies, rabies disease in that country remains on top. According to the neighborhood survey in 2003 by APCRI, about more than 20,000 people in every 100,000 people are estimated to suffer from rabies and most of them are male adults living in rural areas without any vaccination.
The animal prevention area is only short-term effective.
The prevention way of animal rabies include that the public is forced to do the pet registration and pet vaccination. Otherwise, the pets would be dealt as stray dogs. The number of stray dogs should be controlled and dogs are induced to be fed the oral rabies vaccine. Meanwhile, those which are infected rabies should be caught and killed. Then, the regular inspection or the killing of suspicious stray dogs should be carried out. All the above-mentioned strategies only apply to the last prevention in a small area. Thus, the effect can be paid off in a short time. However, due to the huge mobility of stray dogs, the control of funding and the difficult resource of vaccines, the rabies can not be prevented in a longer term. The long-term governmental animal prevention strategy should start to investigate the origin of all the stray dogs, to launch dog castration in order to stop the growth of stray dogs. Meanwhile, the education of rabies prevention should be strengthened on publics. The public should get away from stray dogs. They should also take their own pets to do the castration and vaccination in animal clinics and even should not abandon their pets to increase the member of stray dogs. Thus, the problems of dog rabies infection can really eliminate from the bottom.
The value of the importance of vaccine prevention.
The Indian government should cooperate with the drug sector.
Though the dog bite is the major reason for rabies infection in India, apart from the animal prevention to control the disease, medical staffs in India indicate that due to the expensive vaccines and medical treatment, and the 14 day vaccination, most of the patients do not complete the treatment and a loophole occurs in the rabies prevention.
According to the first chapter Rabies Vaccines in India in the first part Is it just vaccines? in New Technologies in Public Health – Who pays and who benefits？published by Indian National Coordination Committee and JSA(Jan Swasthya Abhiyan) in 2007, the Indian government is accused of using the outdated, expensive and unsafe rabies vaccines prepared with sheep brain. Indian drug controllers never negotiate with MNC pharmaceutical company to lower down the price of safer and new cell-cultured vaccines and to generalize it. The Intra Dermal route of new vaccines can lower down the dose for money saving and security reason. However, two brands of MNC pharmaceutical company, Rabipur and Verorab, are never registered for this technology. Thus, in India, more dose of intramuscular vaccination is widely applied.
Rabies disease in India is still very popular. It not only influences the domestic progress in politics and economics but also becomes a huge loophole for the global disease prevention. Before the international organizations force the government to conduct the precise control, if the drug controllers can focus on the problems of the expensive price of vaccines and the outdated vaccination skills and negotiate in a proper political way, India can be shown as a real country with cultures, economic boom and humanism worth of the global investment and respect.
Data resources:
1. Indian doctors want cheaper rabies drugs ,http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/822457.stm
2. The safety and efficacy of the oral rabies vaccine SAG2 in Indian stray dogs , F. Cliquet, J.P. Gurbuxani, H.K. Pradhan,Vaccine ,Volume 25, Issue 17, 30 April 2007, Pages 3409-3418
3. Human rabies in India: epidemiological features, management and current methods of prevention. Dutta JK. Trop Doct. 1999 Oct;29(4):196-201
4. Epidemiology of dog bites: a community-based study in India. Agarwal N, Reddajah VP. Trop Doct. 2004 Apr;34(2):76-8.
5. http://phm-india.org/pdf/nha2/New_technologies.pdf ,New Technologies in Public Health – Who pays and who benefits?
Does Taiwan Face the Potential Outbreak of Rabies? Yen, Chi-Hao
Since 1959, there has been no human rabies case in Taiwan while since 1961, there has been no animal rabies case. The term, rabies, for young Taiwanese generation, is rather unknown. But it may not be known that Taiwan is one of the seven non-epidemic countries on the world. The rest of the six are Japan, the UK, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland. It may be more unclear that rabies in fact is a disease sharing between animals and human beings. The major infection is among warm-blooded hosts. People usually are infected by the bite, scratches and wound licking from rabies infected cats and dogs. Though there are rabies vaccines, it is useless to inject the vaccines until the infection. The death rate of rabies is almost 100 percent. Though currently Taiwan is a non-epidemic area, Taiwan faces several hidden worries of the outbreak of rabies which are the most neglected parts by the public.
1. The insufficient resources of international health information
Due to the restriction of international political situation, Taiwan is not eligible to participate in the important international health organization like World Health Organization as a member state. An outbreak of a serious pandemic in Taiwan will affect Taiwan to obtain the disease-related information on time and also the international aids will be restrained because of that. The most apparent example is in the beginning of 2003, when the outbreak of SARS occurred in Taiwan, not only the related information and samples were not easily obtained but also due to some reasons even the experts from WHO could only arrive at Taiwan to help until May when the disease had been controlled. If the outbreak of rabies occurred in Taiwan, probably the similar situation like SARS would repeat.
2. The non-transparent disease information in China and the booming trafficking in the islets
According to the statistics from Ministry of Health, China, the first half of this year, 1400 people are reported to be infected rabies while about 1100 people died in China. In this January, 217 reported rabies cases and the number of the death cases were 182. The fatality rate reached 83.87 percent. In the serial eight months, rabies stands the highest number of death among Chinese legal infectious diseases, far more than the second one, tuberculosis(94 cases). Thus, China has become the important rabies disease area. For Taiwan, adjacent to China, is a worry. Two following situations are even more threatening to Taiwan. First, the Chinese government is always trying hard to hide their domestic disease information. For example, several years ago, SARS expanded from the regional disease to the global pandemic. One important reason was that the Chinese government hided the disease information and lied to the WHO inspectors. In addition, many rural areas far away in China lack of the resources and their external transportation connection are not that available. Those health statistics collected by the central government might neglect those areas and influence the value of those statistics. Second, Chinese coastlines are very close to Taiwanese islets. The bilateral people contact each other very often. The trafficking is also common. In fact, those imported cats and dogs should be inspected by Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, Taiwan and install the chips inside of them. However, these measures are applied to those legally-imported animals. If they are from the trafficking and also not inspected by the custom, the loophole will be very worrying.
3. The problems of stray dogs in Taiwan
Stray animals in Taiwan are always a complicated issue. It has caused some problems of environment and personal safety. Once Taiwan unluckily happened to be the rabies epidemic area, those stray dogs would become the individual virus carriers. It would cause a huge impact on the public’s daily life. Moreover, some people do not respect the life and do not consider about their personal condition to adopt the pets. When they get bored of them, they just throw them. It makes the problem of stray animals can not really resolved effectively and also increases the complication of the prevention.
To sum up, in order to eliminate those above-mentioned worries, the government can strengthen the cooperation regarding the health issues with the diplomatic allies and participate in the related events and conferences in WHO in the international community with Taiwanese disease prevention experience and technology to support developing countries for the visibility of Taiwan in the international community.
In the daily life, the government should promote the prevention and inspection- related knowledge to the public and stress on the inspection of trafficking and penalty. Our nationals should respect life and do not traffic those un-inspected animals back to Taiwan. Pet keepers should fulfill their duty as well. Those pets should be taken to animal clinics or animal disease control centers in any county and city to do rabies vaccination. If keepers can not afford raising the pets, they should contact official institutions such as cleaning units and animal detention centers to arrange some available keepers to take on without producing other social problems.
Data resources:
1. http://www.doh.gov.tw/cht2006/index_populace.aspx
2. http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/070804/5/i99i.html
3. http://web.kinmen.gov.tw/371022800g/news/news16.htm
4. http://www.baphiq.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=1 (農委會動植物防檢局)
5. http://www.cdc.gov.tw/index.asp (疾病管制局)
Past, Present and Future about Rabies in Taiwan Lin, Min-Hao
It is believed that rabies was transmitted from Shanghai to Taiwan in 1947 while according to some documents, some rabies cases were discovered in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial time. The first human rabies case in Taiwan was diagnosed by Doc. Lin, Tzeng-Yi in National Taiwan University Hospital on April 15th 1948. Then some disease cases occurred and rabies reached the climax between 1951 and 1952. In these two years, there were 238 and 102 cases respectively. Until 1959, there was no human rabies. After 1961, there was no longer animal rabies. But in 2002, one imported case was discovered and stunned the public health sector in Taiwan.
According to Dog Rabies Inspection Survey in Taiwan in 2003 conducted by Animal Health Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, no rabies cases were discovered after the investigation. Thus, Taiwan is still non-epidemic area. Taiwanese dogs’ positive rate of antibody is about 50.4 percent. (Please refer to the table one. Lee, Shu-Hui et al., 2003). However, lots of efforts still need to be done for the lowest positive rate maintenance between 54% and 62% according to WHO’s standard.
In Asia, apart from Japan and Taiwan are non-epidemic areas, other countries are still epidemic areas. Nowadays, the transportation is so convenient that there might be some loopholes. What’s more, the bilateral trafficking is booming. Thus, in future, dogs in Taiwan should be stressed on the improvement of the positive rate of antibody and the government should expand the scale of rabies vaccination to increase Taiwanese dog group immunity. Only this can avoid the outbreak of rabies in Taiwan in future.
Second, apart from the current Statue for Prevention and Control of Infectious Animal Disease, the legislation of pet management should be launched. The legislation should force pet keepers to register chips into their pets and also include the regular inspection and vaccination. Thus, the related management can be supported by the legislation. The consciousness of keepers should no longer be relied on to make a loophole of the prevention. Moreover, the last outbreak of rabies in Taiwan was over half of century ago. The young generation might know very little about rabies and even do not think that it would occur in Taiwan. Thus, the government should keep educating the related prevention of rabies to the public in order to increase the public awareness of the risk and the active cooperation.
Last but not least, rabies supervising system should be set up. For stray dogs, pets and other warm-blooded animals, the supervising system should be built up and collected the tissues, blood samples and clinical symptoms of all warm-blooded animals. The databank of epidemiology should be set up to realize the change of the disease and to take some proper actions.
In the past, the prevention made Taiwan become one of the seven non-epidemic countries on the world. If the prevention can be carried on more thoroughly in the future, it is believed that rabies can be officially declared that it is extinct in Taiwan as another great achievement of public health in Taiwan.
Table One: the examination result of dog rabies vaccine antibody ELISA
Origin Amount of Serological Test Positive Number(Positive Rate)
Pets 1,559 980 (62.9%)
Stray dogs 2,099 863 ( 41.1%)
Total 3,658 1,843 (50.4%)
Data Resource：Dog Rabies Inspection Survey in Taiwan in 2003, Animal Health Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan
Data Resources:
1. http://vettech.nvri.gov.tw/Articles/report/886.html
2. http://www.adccyl.gov.tw/Animal_Dise/rabies/rabies.htm
3. http://www.cdc.gov.tw/index.asp (疾病管制局)
4. http://www.rabies.com/
September 8th , 2007 is World Rabies Day. WHO associates with Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services(HCPHES), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to raise the public awareness about the current worldwide rabies situation and its prevention through vaccines.
Rabies is infected through animals or patients with rabies infection since their saliva carry the virus. Rabies virus enters human bodies from those infected saliva by scratching and biting while sometimes via skin wound and mucosal. Thus, scratching by rabies infected animals is also dangerous and the reason is that animals will lick their feet. Rabies can transmit to any mammal. But the major infectious animals to human are cats, dogs, raccoons and bats. These animals have more chances to contact human beings especially cats and dogs while raccoons and bats are easier to encounter in the outdoor activities.
Nowadays one single person dies of rabies in every ten minutes on the world. It mainly happens in Asia and Africa especially in India and China. In fact, thanks too the current medical treatment, these people do not really have to face the death. Rabies vaccines can highly prevent the disease occurrence. On the other hand, as far as the infected mammals are concerned, the similar oral vaccines have been produced. For those animal threatened by rabies into extinction, probably this is another solution.
Although rabies is curable, still many people die of rabies on the world and the majority is children. Such a problem may not totally result from the medical problems but the accessible treatment for every possible infected person. It may result from the insufficient vaccines and the high medical price. Moreover, in China, the rapid growing of pet raising will increase the possibility of infection due to the insufficient awareness of public health, the lack of social ethics and the increase of stray dogs.
The record of rabies in Taiwan can be dated back to 1947 from Shanghai to Taiwan. After the first reported case in 1948, still some minor cases continued to happen. Then, the vaccination of pet dogs and the killing of stray dogs had been launched. Since 1959, human rabies no longer occurred. After January 1961, animal rabies no longer occurred as well. Taiwan so far is non-epidemic area. Only in 2002, one imported case from China was reported. Thus, the principal threat in Taiwan so far is from imported infection. Health inspection and quarantine will be the main prevention. However, due to the serious trafficking between Taiwan and China, there are still relatively huge chances to transmit the disease from imported cases or the origin of infection.
The important mission of World Rabies Day is to appeal the public awareness and attention to rabies and to make everyone understand the pathogenic mechanism and situation of such an exiting disease. Through the prevention and complete treatment, rabies is expected to become a noun in the history.
Data resources:
1. http://www.worldrabiesday.org/index_en.php
2. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2007/world_rabies_day/en/index.html
3. http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8023437
4. http://www.cdc.gov.tw/index_info_info.asp?data_id=848
5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A673599
6. http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/aug07/070815l.asp
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3235830.stm
The Unsolved Problems of Rabies in China Lee, Fang-Ying
Rabies is globally widespread especially in Asia, the major infectious area of rabies and death cases. Currently the incidence rate of rabies in China is only second to India, the second highest on the world while the difficulty in tackling rabies in both countries is slightly different. According to the statistics, in the first half of this year, 1400 people are infected rabies while about 1100 people die in China. Thus, after Taiwan initiated the small three links in Kinmen, the pandemic information in China should keep a more precise eye.
Rabies always stands for top three pandemics with high death rate in China. Facing this situation, the Chinese government does not really take some actions. For examples, every province has set up the regulation of pet raising and issued the permit of pet raising. However, the problem of rabies in China still remains unresolved. Where does the problem come from?
First, though the registration of the pet raising permit is regulated, the registration fee is too costly. For example, in Guanzhou, the registration fee is 10,000NTD? or RMB? and 6000 NTD or RMB is paid for annual inspection. Thus, some pet keepers are speculated and keep the ‘illegal’ dogs without applying for the permit.
Second, the quality of vaccines is unstable and the vaccination is not completed. Rabies vaccination is the most effective prevention from the disease. Selecting the most qualified rabies vaccines is the priority. However, not only the amount of the vaccines prepared in China is insufficient but also some fake vaccines killed people. Hence, Ministry of Health in PRC and State Food and Drug Administration issued the emergent notice to enhance the control and supervision of rabies vaccines and to stop the unexamined vaccines entering the operating sector. However, in the end of July, this year, one case of fake drug was investigated in HeiLongJiang Province, China including the fake rabies vaccines.
Third, due to the increasing amount of pet dogs and the stray dogs in the suburb and rural areas, it is hard to collect data and to control the exact amount of dogs and the situation. This makes the public lack of awareness including the government.
‘As far as I understand, rabies is not increasing in China. China is a huge country. It is normal that some cases appear in rural areas.’stated Mr. Jiang Zuojun, vice minister of Ministry of Health in a press conference.
Additionally, due to the lack of professional management and detention centers, people do not know where to apply for the permit. Even though there are many illegal dogs, no one appeals and even no one deals with it. Under the circumstance of the unorganized management, and the ignorance of the regulation, the related regulation is like a blank sheet.
From those above mentioned problems, China should change the policy toward the decrease of rabies. Currently the Chinese government usually uses the so-called management, vaccination and killing to deal with stray dogs. However, it is not successful and many pet dogs are forced to or mistaken to be killed. This appeals many objections from animal protection groups. In fact, the brutal killing should not be launched but the principal management to tackle the rabies since it always depends on keepers’ determination and social ethics. The most principal reason for dog trouble is that irresponsible dog keepers do not keep their own dogs well. Thus, the legislation restricts those keepers. What important is that the legislation must be enforced precisely. There was no special legislation in the past. However, many loopholes happen because of the loose enforcement. For example, huge dogs are transferred to somewhere else during the check. After the check is finished, they can be moved back. In addition, some packaged policy should be launched to lower down the registration fee and annual checking fee, to manage the dog market, to strengthen the animal disease prevention and the function of control center, to provide free rabies vaccines or to launch pet-raising regulatory group in order to supervise dog keepers in the neighborhood. In conclusion, promoting civilized pet raising for keepers without bothering some other else and following the regulation will be the efficient and principal ways to tackle rabies.
Data resources:
http://www.39kf.com/focus/zt/Rabies/
http://www.cdc.gov.tw/
The Booming India. The Highest rabies Infection Wu, Chia-Cheng
Vaccination and animal control project can prevent from rabies 100%. However, India is still highly dangerous for rabies. Due to the expensive vaccines and medicine, time-consuming and painful vaccination treatment and large amount of stray dogs suffering from rabies, rabies disease in that country remains on top. According to the neighborhood survey in 2003 by APCRI, about more than 20,000 people in every 100,000 people are estimated to suffer from rabies and most of them are male adults living in rural areas without any vaccination.
The animal prevention area is only short-term effective.
The prevention way of animal rabies include that the public is forced to do the pet registration and pet vaccination. Otherwise, the pets would be dealt as stray dogs. The number of stray dogs should be controlled and dogs are induced to be fed the oral rabies vaccine. Meanwhile, those which are infected rabies should be caught and killed. Then, the regular inspection or the killing of suspicious stray dogs should be carried out. All the above-mentioned strategies only apply to the last prevention in a small area. Thus, the effect can be paid off in a short time. However, due to the huge mobility of stray dogs, the control of funding and the difficult resource of vaccines, the rabies can not be prevented in a longer term. The long-term governmental animal prevention strategy should start to investigate the origin of all the stray dogs, to launch dog castration in order to stop the growth of stray dogs. Meanwhile, the education of rabies prevention should be strengthened on publics. The public should get away from stray dogs. They should also take their own pets to do the castration and vaccination in animal clinics and even should not abandon their pets to increase the member of stray dogs. Thus, the problems of dog rabies infection can really eliminate from the bottom.
The value of the importance of vaccine prevention.
The Indian government should cooperate with the drug sector.
Though the dog bite is the major reason for rabies infection in India, apart from the animal prevention to control the disease, medical staffs in India indicate that due to the expensive vaccines and medical treatment, and the 14 day vaccination, most of the patients do not complete the treatment and a loophole occurs in the rabies prevention.
According to the first chapter Rabies Vaccines in India in the first part Is it just vaccines? in New Technologies in Public Health – Who pays and who benefits？published by Indian National Coordination Committee and JSA(Jan Swasthya Abhiyan) in 2007, the Indian government is accused of using the outdated, expensive and unsafe rabies vaccines prepared with sheep brain. Indian drug controllers never negotiate with MNC pharmaceutical company to lower down the price of safer and new cell-cultured vaccines and to generalize it. The Intra Dermal route of new vaccines can lower down the dose for money saving and security reason. However, two brands of MNC pharmaceutical company, Rabipur and Verorab, are never registered for this technology. Thus, in India, more dose of intramuscular vaccination is widely applied.
Rabies disease in India is still very popular. It not only influences the domestic progress in politics and economics but also becomes a huge loophole for the global disease prevention. Before the international organizations force the government to conduct the precise control, if the drug controllers can focus on the problems of the expensive price of vaccines and the outdated vaccination skills and negotiate in a proper political way, India can be shown as a real country with cultures, economic boom and humanism worth of the global investment and respect.
Data resources:
1. Indian doctors want cheaper rabies drugs ,http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/822457.stm
2. The safety and efficacy of the oral rabies vaccine SAG2 in Indian stray dogs , F. Cliquet, J.P. Gurbuxani, H.K. Pradhan,Vaccine ,Volume 25, Issue 17, 30 April 2007, Pages 3409-3418
3. Human rabies in India: epidemiological features, management and current methods of prevention. Dutta JK. Trop Doct. 1999 Oct;29(4):196-201
4. Epidemiology of dog bites: a community-based study in India. Agarwal N, Reddajah VP. Trop Doct. 2004 Apr;34(2):76-8.
5. http://phm-india.org/pdf/nha2/New_technologies.pdf ,New Technologies in Public Health – Who pays and who benefits?
Does Taiwan Face the Potential Outbreak of Rabies? Yen, Chi-Hao
Since 1959, there has been no human rabies case in Taiwan while since 1961, there has been no animal rabies case. The term, rabies, for young Taiwanese generation, is rather unknown. But it may not be known that Taiwan is one of the seven non-epidemic countries on the world. The rest of the six are Japan, the UK, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland. It may be more unclear that rabies in fact is a disease sharing between animals and human beings. The major infection is among warm-blooded hosts. People usually are infected by the bite, scratches and wound licking from rabies infected cats and dogs. Though there are rabies vaccines, it is useless to inject the vaccines until the infection. The death rate of rabies is almost 100 percent. Though currently Taiwan is a non-epidemic area, Taiwan faces several hidden worries of the outbreak of rabies which are the most neglected parts by the public.
1. The insufficient resources of international health information
Due to the restriction of international political situation, Taiwan is not eligible to participate in the important international health organization like World Health Organization as a member state. An outbreak of a serious pandemic in Taiwan will affect Taiwan to obtain the disease-related information on time and also the international aids will be restrained because of that. The most apparent example is in the beginning of 2003, when the outbreak of SARS occurred in Taiwan, not only the related information and samples were not easily obtained but also due to some reasons even the experts from WHO could only arrive at Taiwan to help until May when the disease had been controlled. If the outbreak of rabies occurred in Taiwan, probably the similar situation like SARS would repeat.
2. The non-transparent disease information in China and the booming trafficking in the islets
According to the statistics from Ministry of Health, China, the first half of this year, 1400 people are reported to be infected rabies while about 1100 people died in China. In this January, 217 reported rabies cases and the number of the death cases were 182. The fatality rate reached 83.87 percent. In the serial eight months, rabies stands the highest number of death among Chinese legal infectious diseases, far more than the second one, tuberculosis(94 cases). Thus, China has become the important rabies disease area. For Taiwan, adjacent to China, is a worry. Two following situations are even more threatening to Taiwan. First, the Chinese government is always trying hard to hide their domestic disease information. For example, several years ago, SARS expanded from the regional disease to the global pandemic. One important reason was that the Chinese government hided the disease information and lied to the WHO inspectors. In addition, many rural areas far away in China lack of the resources and their external transportation connection are not that available. Those health statistics collected by the central government might neglect those areas and influence the value of those statistics. Second, Chinese coastlines are very close to Taiwanese islets. The bilateral people contact each other very often. The trafficking is also common. In fact, those imported cats and dogs should be inspected by Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, Taiwan and install the chips inside of them. However, these measures are applied to those legally-imported animals. If they are from the trafficking and also not inspected by the custom, the loophole will be very worrying.
3. The problems of stray dogs in Taiwan
Stray animals in Taiwan are always a complicated issue. It has caused some problems of environment and personal safety. Once Taiwan unluckily happened to be the rabies epidemic area, those stray dogs would become the individual virus carriers. It would cause a huge impact on the public’s daily life. Moreover, some people do not respect the life and do not consider about their personal condition to adopt the pets. When they get bored of them, they just throw them. It makes the problem of stray animals can not really resolved effectively and also increases the complication of the prevention.
To sum up, in order to eliminate those above-mentioned worries, the government can strengthen the cooperation regarding the health issues with the diplomatic allies and participate in the related events and conferences in WHO in the international community with Taiwanese disease prevention experience and technology to support developing countries for the visibility of Taiwan in the international community.
In the daily life, the government should promote the prevention and inspection- related knowledge to the public and stress on the inspection of trafficking and penalty. Our nationals should respect life and do not traffic those un-inspected animals back to Taiwan. Pet keepers should fulfill their duty as well. Those pets should be taken to animal clinics or animal disease control centers in any county and city to do rabies vaccination. If keepers can not afford raising the pets, they should contact official institutions such as cleaning units and animal detention centers to arrange some available keepers to take on without producing other social problems.
Data resources:
1. http://www.doh.gov.tw/cht2006/index_populace.aspx
2. http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/070804/5/i99i.html
3. http://web.kinmen.gov.tw/371022800g/news/news16.htm
4. http://www.baphiq.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=1 (農委會動植物防檢局)
5. http://www.cdc.gov.tw/index.asp (疾病管制局)
Past, Present and Future about Rabies in Taiwan Lin, Min-Hao
It is believed that rabies was transmitted from Shanghai to Taiwan in 1947 while according to some documents, some rabies cases were discovered in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial time. The first human rabies case in Taiwan was diagnosed by Doc. Lin, Tzeng-Yi in National Taiwan University Hospital on April 15th 1948. Then some disease cases occurred and rabies reached the climax between 1951 and 1952. In these two years, there were 238 and 102 cases respectively. Until 1959, there was no human rabies. After 1961, there was no longer animal rabies. But in 2002, one imported case was discovered and stunned the public health sector in Taiwan.
According to Dog Rabies Inspection Survey in Taiwan in 2003 conducted by Animal Health Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, no rabies cases were discovered after the investigation. Thus, Taiwan is still non-epidemic area. Taiwanese dogs’ positive rate of antibody is about 50.4 percent. (Please refer to the table one. Lee, Shu-Hui et al., 2003). However, lots of efforts still need to be done for the lowest positive rate maintenance between 54% and 62% according to WHO’s standard.
In Asia, apart from Japan and Taiwan are non-epidemic areas, other countries are still epidemic areas. Nowadays, the transportation is so convenient that there might be some loopholes. What’s more, the bilateral trafficking is booming. Thus, in future, dogs in Taiwan should be stressed on the improvement of the positive rate of antibody and the government should expand the scale of rabies vaccination to increase Taiwanese dog group immunity. Only this can avoid the outbreak of rabies in Taiwan in future.
Second, apart from the current Statue for Prevention and Control of Infectious Animal Disease, the legislation of pet management should be launched. The legislation should force pet keepers to register chips into their pets and also include the regular inspection and vaccination. Thus, the related management can be supported by the legislation. The consciousness of keepers should no longer be relied on to make a loophole of the prevention. Moreover, the last outbreak of rabies in Taiwan was over half of century ago. The young generation might know very little about rabies and even do not think that it would occur in Taiwan. Thus, the government should keep educating the related prevention of rabies to the public in order to increase the public awareness of the risk and the active cooperation.
Last but not least, rabies supervising system should be set up. For stray dogs, pets and other warm-blooded animals, the supervising system should be built up and collected the tissues, blood samples and clinical symptoms of all warm-blooded animals. The databank of epidemiology should be set up to realize the change of the disease and to take some proper actions.
In the past, the prevention made Taiwan become one of the seven non-epidemic countries on the world. If the prevention can be carried on more thoroughly in the future, it is believed that rabies can be officially declared that it is extinct in Taiwan as another great achievement of public health in Taiwan.
Table One: the examination result of dog rabies vaccine antibody ELISA
Origin Amount of Serological Test Positive Number(Positive Rate)
Pets 1,559 980 (62.9%)
Stray dogs 2,099 863 ( 41.1%)
Total 3,658 1,843 (50.4%)
Data Resource：Dog Rabies Inspection Survey in Taiwan in 2003, Animal Health Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan
Data Resources:
1. http://vettech.nvri.gov.tw/Articles/report/886.html
2. http://www.adccyl.gov.tw/Animal_Dise/rabies/rabies.htm
3. http://www.cdc.gov.tw/index.asp (疾病管制局)
4. http://www.rabies.com/
中國黑心商品背後的“全球共犯結構”
我覺得這篇報導提出的思想方向滿特別的，
可以給寫國際延伸的夥伴參考囉~
芳盈
http://www5.chinesenewsnet.com/MainNews/Opinion/2007_9_16_19_18_57_577.html
楊偉中﹕中國黑心商品背後的“全球共犯結構”
中國黑心商品的問題層出無窮﹐之所以引起國內外普遍的關注﹐
一方面固然是因為其問題的嚴重性不容忽視﹐另一方面﹐毋庸諱言的
﹐也有微妙復雜的國際政治經濟因素（如貿易競爭和防范中國崛起等）
在其中發揮作用。
黑心商品不管來自何國﹐既然對人體對環境造成危害﹐當然都要
尋找源頭﹑追究責任。然而追尋下去﹐我們將會發現﹐問題絕比想像
中更為復雜﹐至少不是中國人沒有良心﹑道德淪喪等這麼簡單的理由
可以說明的。
今年七月中﹐《華爾街日報》刊登了一篇題為〈電子垃圾的全球
路線圖〉的文章﹐把部分中國黑心商品生產背後復雜的“全球共犯結
構”進行了揭露。大家都知道﹐一些中國出口的兒童玩具與飾品含有
鉛﹐甚至是銅﹑銻﹐這些金屬成份將對使用這些玩具的幼兒和制造產
品的工人（指出這點是重要的﹐因為當我們關注黑心產品進口國民眾
的健康時﹐很少人想到制造這些產品的工人）造成嚴重傷害。但進一
步的問題是﹕鉛從哪裡來﹖為何要使用鉛﹖這些產品的進口者有把關嗎﹖
《華爾街日報》引述了黑心產品出口地﹑關注毒物問題的美國環
保團體－硅谷毒物聯盟以及學者的研究報告指出﹕中國制造商使用的
這些鉛中有一部分來自西方國家傾倒至中國的廢棄電腦和其它電子產
品﹐原來在此類黑心商品的背後﹐是一個有毒物質的全球化循環﹕美
國高科技垃圾中的有毒材料﹐出口到了中國﹐經過加工制造後變成了
對孩子有害的商品又轉回了美國。
這些制造黑心商品的毒物如何出口﹖原來是在出口國被定義為無
毒廢棄物﹐規避了相關的環保法律﹐以便輸出到第三世界國家加工再
制。跟黑心工廠下訂單的採購商（往往是知名的跨國公司）知情嗎﹖
他們可能會堅稱不知情﹐但對于生產廠商來說﹐這是一樁買家賣家心
照不宣的交易﹐廠商使用便宜的鉛以壓低售價﹐而買家自然也降低進
口成本。
除此之外﹐黑心食品的問題或許也比想像中復雜。黑心食品之所
以有毒有害﹐一方面固然是食品生產加工業者為了牟取利潤﹐或是使
用惡質原材料﹐或是添加有害物質﹐或是在生產過程中滲進了有毒物
質等。這些都還是制造者有知覺有意識下的作為﹐更難追查的是水與
土壤的嚴重污染帶進食品中的毒物。
今天的中國﹐不僅是世界工廠﹐也如過去的臺灣和許多第三世界
國家一樣成為世界垃圾場。除了中國本地企業制造的污染外﹐來自全
球的跨國公司也是中國環境破壞的首謀與共犯。中國公眾與環境研究
中心在八月公布了一份在中國制造污染的企業名單﹐其中跨國公司就
有一百多家﹐包括大家耳熟能詳的百事﹑雀巢﹑通用﹑肯德基﹑杜邦
等﹐也包括來自韓國和第三世界國家如印尼﹑印度的跨國公司。
描繪這個黑心商品生產的全球路線圖﹐並非要替中國生產者脫罪。
在三十多年來一股腦向西方大量生產﹑大量消費模式看齊的資本主義
狂潮下﹐盲目招商引資﹑踐踏環境﹑傷害勞動人權﹐中國的統治菁英
可以說是惡名昭彰的人權罪犯。
但是﹐在全球生產﹑全球銷售的今天﹐黑心商品的出現與氾濫﹐
突顯的問題不是單單是中國的種種結構性弊病﹐也突顯了資本主義全
球體系的病症。面對中國黑心產品﹐我們要可能要多做點功課﹐才能
對症下藥。
可以給寫國際延伸的夥伴參考囉~
芳盈
http://www5.chinesenewsnet.com/MainNews/Opinion/2007_9_16_19_18_57_577.html
楊偉中﹕中國黑心商品背後的“全球共犯結構”
中國黑心商品的問題層出無窮﹐之所以引起國內外普遍的關注﹐
一方面固然是因為其問題的嚴重性不容忽視﹐另一方面﹐毋庸諱言的
﹐也有微妙復雜的國際政治經濟因素（如貿易競爭和防范中國崛起等）
在其中發揮作用。
黑心商品不管來自何國﹐既然對人體對環境造成危害﹐當然都要
尋找源頭﹑追究責任。然而追尋下去﹐我們將會發現﹐問題絕比想像
中更為復雜﹐至少不是中國人沒有良心﹑道德淪喪等這麼簡單的理由
可以說明的。
今年七月中﹐《華爾街日報》刊登了一篇題為〈電子垃圾的全球
路線圖〉的文章﹐把部分中國黑心商品生產背後復雜的“全球共犯結
構”進行了揭露。大家都知道﹐一些中國出口的兒童玩具與飾品含有
鉛﹐甚至是銅﹑銻﹐這些金屬成份將對使用這些玩具的幼兒和制造產
品的工人（指出這點是重要的﹐因為當我們關注黑心產品進口國民眾
的健康時﹐很少人想到制造這些產品的工人）造成嚴重傷害。但進一
步的問題是﹕鉛從哪裡來﹖為何要使用鉛﹖這些產品的進口者有把關嗎﹖
《華爾街日報》引述了黑心產品出口地﹑關注毒物問題的美國環
保團體－硅谷毒物聯盟以及學者的研究報告指出﹕中國制造商使用的
這些鉛中有一部分來自西方國家傾倒至中國的廢棄電腦和其它電子產
品﹐原來在此類黑心商品的背後﹐是一個有毒物質的全球化循環﹕美
國高科技垃圾中的有毒材料﹐出口到了中國﹐經過加工制造後變成了
對孩子有害的商品又轉回了美國。
這些制造黑心商品的毒物如何出口﹖原來是在出口國被定義為無
毒廢棄物﹐規避了相關的環保法律﹐以便輸出到第三世界國家加工再
制。跟黑心工廠下訂單的採購商（往往是知名的跨國公司）知情嗎﹖
他們可能會堅稱不知情﹐但對于生產廠商來說﹐這是一樁買家賣家心
照不宣的交易﹐廠商使用便宜的鉛以壓低售價﹐而買家自然也降低進
口成本。
除此之外﹐黑心食品的問題或許也比想像中復雜。黑心食品之所
以有毒有害﹐一方面固然是食品生產加工業者為了牟取利潤﹐或是使
用惡質原材料﹐或是添加有害物質﹐或是在生產過程中滲進了有毒物
質等。這些都還是制造者有知覺有意識下的作為﹐更難追查的是水與
土壤的嚴重污染帶進食品中的毒物。
今天的中國﹐不僅是世界工廠﹐也如過去的臺灣和許多第三世界
國家一樣成為世界垃圾場。除了中國本地企業制造的污染外﹐來自全
球的跨國公司也是中國環境破壞的首謀與共犯。中國公眾與環境研究
中心在八月公布了一份在中國制造污染的企業名單﹐其中跨國公司就
有一百多家﹐包括大家耳熟能詳的百事﹑雀巢﹑通用﹑肯德基﹑杜邦
等﹐也包括來自韓國和第三世界國家如印尼﹑印度的跨國公司。
描繪這個黑心商品生產的全球路線圖﹐並非要替中國生產者脫罪。
在三十多年來一股腦向西方大量生產﹑大量消費模式看齊的資本主義
狂潮下﹐盲目招商引資﹑踐踏環境﹑傷害勞動人權﹐中國的統治菁英
可以說是惡名昭彰的人權罪犯。
但是﹐在全球生產﹑全球銷售的今天﹐黑心商品的出現與氾濫﹐
突顯的問題不是單單是中國的種種結構性弊病﹐也突顯了資本主義全
球體系的病症。面對中國黑心產品﹐我們要可能要多做點功課﹐才能
對症下藥。
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