Taiwan has decided not to participate in an international conference on combating H1N1 influenza slated to be held in Beijing today as the country was asked to register under the name “Taiwan, China,” a Department of Health (DOH) official said yesterday.
“We didn’t register for the conference because it’s inappropriate that Taiwan be called ‘Taiwan, China,’” DOH spokesman Wang Che-chao (王哲超) said.
The conference, titled International Scientific Symposium on Influenza Pandemic Response and Preparedness, is available for online registration, but the DOH did not sign up, Wang said.
Sponsored by China’s health ministry and co-sponsored by the WHO and the medical periodical the Lancet, the conference will take place today and tomorrow.
The formal name for Taiwan to attend international conferences is the Republic of China, Wang said.
“If for some reason it is not allowed to use the formal name, we will accept ‘Chinese Taipei’ out of respect for the host,” Wang said. “We will launch a protest against hosts if other names are used, such as ‘Taiwan, China.’”
STUDENTS RETURN
Meanwhile, a total of 237 Taiwanese students, several of whom tested positive for the A(H1N1) influenza virus in South Korea, returned to Taiwan yesterday on two charter flights arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
The 238-member group, which is composed of tour guides as well as students and teachers from National Taiwan Normal University, Kuang Hwa Junior High School in Hsinchu City and Er Chong Junior High School in Hsinchu County, were in South Korea to attend the 14th Jeju International Wind Ensemble Festival.
The group was quarantined in a resort on Jeju island after some members of the group developed high fevers on Monday. Fifteen members of the group were later confirmed to have the A(H1N1) flu, also known as swine flu.
Apart from one tour guide who flew to Italy, the group returned to Taiwan yesterday morning on two TransAsia Airways charter flights.
The 15 confirmed flu cases will receive the necessary treatment, while the rest will be quarantined and monitored.
MOFA STATEMENT
James Chang (章計平), MOFA’s deputy, denied at a regular press briefing yesterday accusations made by some teachers that the ministry acted slowly in providing assistance to the group.
Chang said that officials from the Foreign Ministry’s representative office in Seoul and Busan immediately went to Jeju on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, upon learning that 15 of the students had the flu.
The CDC on Wednesday confirmed five more clusters of swine flu infection in Taiwan, bringing the total number on record to 48.
Among the five latest clusters reported, two were at hospitals, two at junior high schools and one at an after-school care center.
The CDC had also confirmed three more cases of severe influenza A(H1N1) infection, bringing the total to 28. They were a 45-year-old female patient at National Taiwan University Hospital, a six-year-old boy with acute lymphoid leukemia and a seven-year-old girl with a ventricular septal defect.
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