TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has confirmed its discussions with World Health Organization (WHO) officials about Taiwan’s coronavirus response, saying it was a good start as the UN health agency has long blocked the island’s participation.
CECC’s advisory specialist panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said at a press conference on Thursday (April 16) that he and other health experts had had a telephone conference with Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO researcher specializing in the coronavirus, and a legal consultant the day before. In terms of controlling the spread of the virus, Chang said, “The WHO was curious about how Taiwan had done such a good job.”
According to Chang, Taiwanese experts had expressed a strong interest in taking part in technical meetings hosted by the WHO, especially ones that touched on vaccine research, during the phone call. However, Van Kerkhove made no affirmative response, saying only that her team would consider the proposal later.
During the conference, which lasted for approximately one hour, Taiwanese health experts shared with the WHO an array of prevention measures that helped the island nation prevent a major virus outbreak, said Chang. The health agency was particularly interested in singularities that occurred to individual patients and the situations of locally transmitted cases, he added.
“We are willing to share Taiwan’s experience in handling the coronavirus with the WHO and other countries,” stressed Chang. Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) observed that this was a good start for the WHO, which has long excluded Taiwan from the agency, citing a United Nations’ resolution that expressed the idea of Beijing's “one China" principle.
The WHO has come under fire after failing to lead global efforts to fight against the coronavirus, which later evolved into a pandemic that has infected more than 2.1 million of the world’s population and claimed more than 144,000 lives as of Friday (April 17). It has also been criticized for fawning over Beijing while ignoring its cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Chen reiterated that Taiwan remains willing to take part in the WHO and acquire first-hand information concerning global health issues. He commended the WHO for its numerous benevolent features and devoted experts from around the world but urged the agency to prioritize health issues instead of politics.
The WHO said it had been working closely with Taiwanese health authorities over the years and during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Taiwan, on the other hand, stated it had warned the WHO late last year of the outbreak of a SARS-like disease in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but the warning was ignored; nor had the WHO shared this information with other countries.
The Taiwanese government has also accused the WHO of kowtowing to Beijing, as it has not invited Taiwan to its annual World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer since 2017 and denied Taiwanese experts’ access to 70 percent of its technical meetings and relevant activities in recent years. U.S. President Donald Trump has also publically chastised the WHO for being “China-centric” and pledged to call a probe into the agency while also suspending its funding.