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DOH keeps up pressure on the WHO

A cleaner yesterday sterilizes Taipei's Jen Chi Hospital in order to prepare for the reopening celebration today. The hospital was shut down for over a month due to serious hospital transmission of SARS. PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

Taiwan reiterated its regret that the World Health Organization (WHO) misunderstood the country's handling of the SARS epidemic, urging it to remove Taiwan from its travel warning advisory list sooner rather than later.

"We have done better a job than some other countries. However, we have been asked to meet a much stricter standard," Department of Health (DOH) Director-General Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said at a news conference yesterday.

"We are not weak. Taiwan has been `quarantined' from the WHO for 20 years and [our health-care system] has grown to become a model," he said.

Chen said Taiwan has furnished the WHO with more information about the country's SARS situation in the hope that the world health watchdog lift its warning against non-essential travel to the country.

The WHO rejected Taiwan's previous application for removal from its travel advisory list. It asked the country to check whether the six suspected SARS cases reported in the US, South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Germany and Brazil between March and early June were acquired in Taiwan.

"We have toiled to collect sufficient data to prove that Taiwan has not exported any SARS cases," Chen said, adding that all six probable cases the WHO was investigating as coming from Taiwan tested negative for SARS.

Chen said Taiwan will not be daunted by the setback and will even redouble efforts to meet the WHO's relatively stringent requirements for removal from its travel advisory list, even though the nation has been kept from participation in the world health body.

Moreover, Chen said, Taiwan must remain on the alert against the possibility of SARS-positive individuals entering the country and starting a new line of transmission.

Saying that an 82-year-old veteran showed SARS-like symptoms after returning from a visit to the central Chinese province of Hunan earlier this week, Chen stressed that it is important to keep certain quarantine measures for incoming passengers.

He used the example to imply that the WHO may wish to consider looking into whether the disease has spread to other regions of China.

Meanwhile, Chen also said that Taiwan's four representatives, who have been invited by the WHO to attend an international seminar on SARS, will participate in the activity as representatives of a state.

"Su Yi-jen (蘇益仁), director-general of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) under the DOH was addressed with his formal, official title in the WHO invitation to the seminar to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from June 17 to 18," Chen said.

Chen said the WHO has also invited three Taiwan scholars -- Chen Pei-che (陳培哲), director of the Hepatitis Research Center of National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), Chang Shang-chun (張上淳), director of the Infectious Disease Department at NTUH, and Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an associate research fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Academia Sinica -- to attend the seminar.

According to DOH officials, the WHO will make special arrangements to let Su and other Taiwan participants discuss SARS issues with delegates from other countries.

The Taiwan delegates will leave for Kuala Lumpur on Sunday and are scheduled to return next Thursday.

As to the latest development of the government's efforts to control the spread of SARS, another medical professional yesterday succumbed to the illness.

Tsai Chiao-miao (蔡巧妙), a 41-year-old lab medicine technician from Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital, most likely contracted the virus when she was on duty in the emergency department on April 17 because she fell ill the day after completing her shift on that date. She sought treatment from both Hoping Hospital and NTUH.

Later she was transferred to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou (林口長庚醫院) where she passed away.
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