Members of the Asia Pacific Inter-City SARS Prevention Forum yesterday signed a cooperation memorandum, agreeing to establish a Geographical Information System (GIS), an online network to communicate real-time information about SARS and other infectious diseases.
Taipei City Government Bureau of Health Director Chang Hang (張珩) reported that a total of 15 participants from the US, Canada, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan had signed the memorandum, representing cities, hospitals, and governmental as well as non-governmental organizations.
According to Chang, participants were asked to clarify the organizations and cities they represented before signing. Canada's Commissioner of Public Health, Colin D'Cunha, signed on behalf of Ontario.
Chang stated that representatives from Hong Kong's Hospital Authority and Prince of Wales Hospital had also signed the memorandum, pointing towards more transparency with regards to information on China's SARS situation.
Singapore's Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the Singapore General Hospital were also represented.
Taipei Mayor Ma Yin-jeou (馬英九) signed the memorandum on behalf of the city.
"We've had this idea in mind since the early stages of the SARS outbreak. If SARS comes back now, we can handle it better the second time around," Ma said.
"Forum participants are all at the frontline of SARS prevention. At the very least, they know each other now and can easily pick up the telephone and communicate when necessary," he said.
Ma emphasized that transparency in international relations comes down to human relations.
Chang agreed, reporting that it would take at least 10 days to communicate SARS information via the World Health Organization. He stressed that the said memorandum was established because the speed of sharing information was an important factor.
According to Chang, details still need to be discussed. He explained that the potential disclosure of a patient's private information was an issue that had to be worked out, suggesting that the GIS would require only the location of infected patients.
He reported that forum participants had tentatively agreed to meet once a year.
The memorandum is a token of the recognition that it is in the mutual interest of the participants to develop a cooperative defense system. The memorandum states that participants will freely and openly exchange their experiences with SARS and other communicable diseases, alert each other of cross-border transmissions in a timely fashion and cooperate in research, training and other relevant disciplines.
The memorandum further includes an agreement to collaborate in the fight to control and eradicate not only SARS, but also dengue fever, cholera, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, meningococcal meningitis, E. coli infection, open tuberculosis, AIDS, bacillary dysentery, anthrax, influenza and other communicable diseases.
Chang said that the memorandum's vision was similar to that of an emergency operation center, an information hub that would allow efficient communication.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS