Taiwan's exclusion from the WHO is not only unfair to the people of this country but has also put the world at risk, a US commentator wrote in an article published on Friday in the Washington Times.
"Generally, China's far-reaching campaign to isolate Taiwan impacts mostly on the Taiwanese. But in keeping the island of 23 million out of the WHO, it endangers us all," wrote Don Feder, a consultant and freelance writer based in Massachusetts.
Feder said that because of China's obstruction, Taiwan was again denied access to the World Health Assembly this year, at a time when representatives of almost every nation in the world are present in Geneva discussing a potential avian flu pandemic.
The situation has resulted in "a gap wide enough to drive a plague" in the global health surveillance and response network and has placed "an unfair burden on 23 million people who are punished for being born in a place coveted by another nation," Feder wrote.
Feder said that Taiwan was a hub of international trade and transportation, with 21 million passengers arriving and departing on 175,230 international flights in 2004.
Also, Taiwan maintains frequent cargo and visitor exchanges with Southeast Asia -- a hot zone for avian flu -- with 1.43 million Taiwanese visiting Southeast Asia and 570,000 Southeast Asian citizens visiting Taiwan in 2004, he said.
In addition, an estimated 1.25 million migratory birds of 351 species pass through Taiwan annually, he added.
"All this spells potential disaster. Viruses don't respect national boundaries -- nor do they take cognizance of China's territorial claims," Feder said.
He said that in 2003 when Taiwan was hit by SARS, it took the WHO seven weeks to respond to Taipei's pleas for help and that Taiwan was barred from access to meetings of WHO experts, including video-conferences, for almost two months.
"Taiwan's politically imposed isolation from the international health network helped to transform what could have been a mild SARS outbreak into a tragedy that claimed 73 lives," he said.
He said that long before that, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution in 1998 calling on the administration of former US president Bill Clinton to support Taiwan's participation in the WHO.
Feder urged the world not to compromise its ability to track, respond to and contain the next global epidemic "to feed Beijing's fantasies that it controls Taiwan."
"We're no longer just talking about fairness for Taiwan but the health and well-being of us all," he said.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400