Never before has there been such a unified voice emerging from the floor of a World Health Assembly (WHA) conference. This year, the delegates assembled in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, found consensus in the need to address the Zika virus.
From the speech delivered by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍), to bilateral talks on the sidelines with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell and statements given by the representatives of other nations and even in a conversation with Taiwan’s WTO representative, “Zika” was all we heard — and this at a time when the nation has had its second case of a Zika-infected person arriving from overseas.
The Zika virus was discovered in 1947, but was only recognized as a threat nearly seven decades later, and then only because of a search for the cause of the high incidence-rate of babies born with microcephaly in Brazil. It is for this reason that the world owes a debt to Brazil’s transparency and openness about its epidemics.
This is also the reason that neither Taiwan or the US, nor the WHO, have imposed a travel ban on people from Central America or South America. Zika is certainly dangerous, but it poses the greatest threat to unborn children, and it is known how it is transmitted. There are parallels in the effectiveness of its prevention with last year’s dengue fever epidemic. It was because of new screening equipment that we were able to discover that the major risk posed by dengue fever was to elderly people.
Fear must not be allowed to dominate the government’s reactions, and unwarranted prohibitions merely create unnecessary panic and discourage countries from reporting information about epidemics occurring within their borders to the international community. This only makes it more difficult to control the spread of diseases.
Taiwan’s experience with its two Zika cases — the result of the outbreak in Brazil — are enough to show that the “enemy” lies outside the nation’s borders, and that the battle for prevention of a domestic outbreak must now be conducted on an international level. This is especially true now that Taiwan is to follow the “new southbound policy,” which is to see increased exchanges with ASEAN countries — and cross-strait interaction will also increase. In addition, in a globalized world, borders are increasingly blurred.
All of these present challenges to Taiwan just as much as they present opportunities. Taiwan needs the world, but the world also needs Taiwan.
Despite all that has been written on the complications of Taiwan’s participation in the WHA conference this year, the nation was still able to stand firmly on the world epidemic prevention stage. Only last month, we held a joint seminar with the US, helping a dozen or so neighboring Asian countries to test for the Zika virus. In the past, too, we have assisted other countries regarding Ebola, dengue fever and Middle East respiratory syndrome.
During the WHA meeting, the US held bilateral talks with the Taiwanese delegation, pledged to support Taiwan and promised that the US Department of Health and Human Services would cooperate with Taiwan on developing a vaccine to help elderly people fight off dengue fever. All of these exemplify the idea of a unified global effort at epidemic prevention.
Taiwan is now in the process of preparing to join the Global Health Security Agenda, and the process is hoped to be completed this year.
It is impossible to know when the next infectious disease outbreak will emerge, neither is it known whether old viruses will — like Zika — reveal a new, previously unknown side.
The prominence of the Zika virus at the talks at the Palais des Nations shows us how much humility is required to deal with infectious diseases, and how Taipei must stand firm and show the world that global health security cannot be ensured without Taiwan.
Steve Kuo is director-general of the Centers for Disease Control.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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