TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The issue pertaining to Taiwan’s inclusion in the World Health Organization (WHO) will be discussed during a key assembly scheduled for mid-May, following official proposals made by its member states, confirmed a WHO legal expert at Monday’s (May 4) press briefing.
“Taiwan’s observer status in the WHA (World Health Assembly) ”is a question for the 194 governments of WHO,” said Steven Solomon, a legal consultant for the UN health agency. “It is not something that [the] WHO Secretariat has the authority to decide.”
However, Solomon, who took it upon his own initiative to talk about Taiwan’s participation in the WHO, citing the issue as having been brought up by the media many times, noted that the same issue would be discussed during the upcoming assembly. Two countries have formally tendered the proposal regarding Taiwan’s participation, said Solomon, who nevertheless did not provide details as to how the issue will be touched upon during the one-week assembly that opens on May 18.
“A lot of attention has focused on Taiwan’s participation with the WHO, and we understand that,” said Solomon. “But it is not the role of the WHO staff to be involved in geopolitical issues,” he added.
However, Solomon also cited the decision of the United Nations in 1971 to recognize China instead of Taiwan. “Forty-nine years ago the UN and WHO decided that there was only one legitimate representative of China within the UN system, and that is the PRC. That decision still stands,” he said.
The legal expert took up the media’s question about the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) warning email to the WHO of a mysterious type of pneumonia, saying that he would “set the record straight,” even though the question was originally posed to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The email “was not a warning” but “a request for information on cases of atypical pneumonia reported by news sources,” said Solomon.
The email from Taiwan included events that “the WHO and most public health services already know about,” said Solomon, adding that several other countries also sent similar emails to the WHO on the same day. Taiwan’s health authorities have previously refuted the WHO on the matter.
Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) revealed the content of the email at a press briefing last month, in which Taiwan’s CDC said cases of atypical pneumonia in China “have been isolated for treatment.” He contended that even though the CDC did not spell out “human to human transmission” in the email, a person with a medical background should have been alerted by the missive.
Solomon also stressed that the WHO has been working closely with the Taiwanese health authorities in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19). “In the COVID-19 response, especially [Taiwan has] had notable successes and we appreciate their contributions.”