Taiwan extends voluntary health testing for cross-strait visitors

Mainland China, Macao and Hong Kong arrivals at four Taiwan airports will be tested for respiratory illnesses on a voluntary basis until Chinese New Year, said the island’s top health official Hsieh Jui-yuan.

The airports are Taoyuan, Songshan, Taichung and Kaohsiung. The testing program was initiated on 26 November in response to an increase in the number of mycoplasma pneumoniae and respiratory cases in the mainland that have been reported by multiple media outlets worldwide. 

Travellers from across the strait who exhibit flu-like symptoms are encouraged to undergo the tests, which so far have uncovered 20 cases of flu, 8 cases of Covid-19 and 6 cases of adenovirus, rhinovirus and parainfluenza, but no cases of mycoplasma pneumoniae.

[See more: Mandatory mask-wearing reinstated in Macao’s care facilities]

Hsieh said that while there are currently cases of the virus in Taiwan, there were no large-scale clusters. Despite that, testing is being extended “because the number of travellers arriving from mainland China before the Lunar New Year is likely to gradually increase.” 

Views towards the program are mixed, with one traveller telling local media that the tests were an overreaction.

In addition to testing, Taiwan’s Centre for Disease and Control is conducting fixed-point monitoring in the airports.