Responding to Taiwan's strong protests, the World Health Organization (WHO) has corrected the global avian influenza maps posted on its Web site by changing the color of Taiwan to indicate the nation's H5N1-free status, an official said yesterday.
"We welcome and recognize the WHO's prompt and positive response to our demand," Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Michel Lu said, "and we hope the organization would avoid a similar incident happening again."
He added that the WHO's correction was congruent with professionalism and the facts of the matter.
The WHO erroneously included Taiwan in a list of countries affected by the deadly H5N1 avian flu strain on four global and country maps posted on its official Web site on March 9.
As Taiwan has not recorded any H5N1 avian flu case in either animals or humans, the foreign affairs ministry swiftly lodged a formal complaint with the WHO headquarters in Geneva, demanding an immediate correction.
The organization responded by holding a press conference on March 10 to announce that Taiwan had not reported any bird-flu cases as of that date.
The WHO Secretariat said that it had classified the avian flu situation in terms of "nation" and that under its "one China" policy, Taiwan was included as an H5N1-affected area along with China -- which has recorded H5N1 bird flu cases in both animals and humans.
After intensive negotiations, two WHO officials publicly confirmed last Friday that Taiwan is free of H5N1 avian flu infections in poultry, wild birds and humans. But they remained noncommittal as to how to deal with its Web site maps.
In light of the potentially negative impact on Taiwan's economy, trade, tourism and international image, the nation's representative office in Geneva continued negotiations with WHO authorities over the weekend. Acting on Taiwan's push, the WHO Secretariat finally corrected its mistake yesterday.
The WHO replaced the color of Taiwan on its map of infected areas from red (meaning human contracted H5N1 virus had been detected) to white (none detected).
On the revised WHO global avian flu maps, Taiwan ranks among countries with no H5N1 cases in both animals and humans.
The foreign affairs ministry issued a statement yesterday evening expressing appreciation for the organization's efforts and the concern of the international community.
The Department of Health also thanked the WHO for quickly rectifying the information, adding that it hoped the organization would contact local health authorities for updated information on the disease.
"This indicates that our demand was reasonable," said Chang Wu-hsiu (
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS