TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The president of Taiwan's Academia Sinica, James Liao (廖俊智), took part in a conference call with multiple officials from the European Union on Thursday (March 18) to discuss future cooperation between Taiwan and the EU to counter the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

The call, which was also joined by the Head of the European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan, Filip Grzegorzewski, focused on the academy's latest progress on the development of vaccines and virus tests from Taiwan's national academy, and how the latter could be adopted in the EU.

The EU recognized Taiwan's accomplishments in containing the outbreak and agreed to work with the Academia Sinica to speed up the research on the vaccines and rapid tests for COVID-19. "With reliable 15 [minute] tests, we will defeat the coronavirus," Grzegorzewski tweeted on Thursday.

The conference call participants included officers from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, and the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety.