PFP Legislator Kao Ming-chian (
Kao, in remarks during a Legislative Yuan interpellation session, said it is high time for the "three Chinese communities from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait" to cooperate at a time when the disease is taking an increasing toll on the world.
Taiwan, he said, should also step up the pace of its moves to secure observer status in the World Health Assembly in a bid to highlight to the world that Taiwan is not a province of the PRC as Beijing has continuously claimed.
In response, National Science Council Vice Chairman Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), who is also convener of the Executive Yuan's SARS ad hoc committee, said that soon after SARS began to affect this country, the government dispatched personnel to Hong Kong in the hopes of obtaining medical data and other pertinent material from the territory and China.
The personnel, however, were not able to obtain any SARS reagents or related cells containing possible SARS-causing virus which the Hong Hong authorities had promised to provide to them, according to Chen.
Chen said it is tremendously difficult for the government to keep contact with health authorities in Hong Kong or to acquire related medical assistance because Taiwan is not a World Health Organization member.
Similar efforts, he added, must be made by private groups if any results are to be expected.
He said the SARS situation in this country is far less serious than that of China or Hong Kong. The council, nevertheless, has not let up in its efforts to contain the disease, and has implemented preventive measures to try to curb the disease, including sponsoring SARS-related workshops on clinical research, epidemiology, virology and treatment.
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