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Taiwan may offer at APEC to produce bird flu vaccine

Taiwan may propose that it produce bird-flu vaccine at next month's APEC summit in an effort to help combat the spread of the deadly disease, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kao (高英茂) said yesterday.

Kao made the remarks at an interpellation session of the legislature's Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee yesterday. He was responding to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tang Bi-A's (唐碧娥) question on what role the nation would play in global preventive efforts against avian flu. Those efforts will be high on the agenda at next month's APEC leaders' summit in Busan, South Korea.

The legislator warned that the nation must avoid being excluded from the global health network, as it was during the last SARS outbreak.

In response, Kao said "the ministry has made frequent contacts with the WHO Secretariat to ensure that Taiwan can participate in every meeting related to the disease."

He said Taiwan's current communication with the WHO is going well and "China hasn't been able to make any public protest [against Taiwan] due to the scope and severity of the disease."

Kao said if the proposal to produce a vaccine and distribute it through the APEC network is successful, it would mark an important contribution from Taiwan to global efforts to stamp out the disease.

"We certainly will make good use of this opportunity, which might help Taiwan make a breakthrough in international participation," Kao said.

Kao said the country has the expertise to produce a vaccine, but is still working on its proposal due to the high research costs involved.
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