Taipei:Taiwan is maintaining vigilance over online rumors suggesting a pneumonic plague outbreak has spread from Russia into China, with the potential to enhance existing quarantine protocols, Premier Cho Jung-tai stated on Tuesday.

According to Focus Taiwan, during a legislative session, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu highlighted circulating rumors about the disease's spread across multiple Chinese provinces. He queried Premier Cho on whether Taiwan's government was prepared to counteract the disease's potential spread to Taiwan due to frequent interactions with China, and how serious the government considered the alleged outbreak.

Premier Cho assured that the Ministry of Health and Welfare had already implemented border quarantine measures following a briefing to the Executive Yuan on this issue two weeks prior. The government is "highly, highly concerned," he emphasized, ensuring that authorities will continue to scrutinize online information from China for any "suspicious" developments that might necessitate bolstering quarantine measures.

When questioned by Wang regarding claims of online content about pneumonic plague cases being removed in Sichuan Province, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng remarked on China's historical "opacity" regarding disease outbreaks. He noted that the MAC would maintain communication with the health ministry to ensure that Taiwanese businesspeople in China are kept apprised of the situation.

Health Minister Shih Chung-liang stated that his ministry had reached out to the World Health Organization to confirm if the October 2 death of a 28-year-old laboratory worker at Russia's Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute was linked to pneumonic plague. However, he clarified that no tests had yet returned positive results, and thus a definitive conclusion regarding the plague had not been reached.