New Delhi (NVI): Amid the global catastrophe caused by coronavirus, Taiwan has targeted China and the World Health Organisation (WHO), saying they had failed to warn other countries about human-to-human transmission of the disease at the end of December after cases were detected in Wuhan.
Director General of Taiwan’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Chou Jih-haw said an email was sent to China and the WHO on December 31, saying that Taiwan was aware of a respiratory illness that had appeared in Wuhan and was worried about the possibility of human-to-human transmission, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported.
Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said China did not clarify on the human-to-human transmission and the WHO did nothing more than simply acknowledging receipt of Taiwan’s email, according to CNA.
Addressing a press conference in Taipei yesterday, Head of the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Bob Chen said Taiwan learned about the emergence of atypical pneumonia cases in Wuhan before the end of 2019.
Taiwan’s CDC communicated this information to the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR) framework and to the Chinese side on December 31, requesting them to verify, Chen said.
The WHO said it would relay the information to experts, but the information was not shared in WHO’s internal website for other countries, according to Chen.
The CDC still has the records of those email communications, Chen said.
The officials were responding to a media report on March 20, which talked about the alleged inaction of the WHO in light of Taiwan’s concerns, quoting several Taiwanese officials, including Vice President Chen Chien-jen.
“While the IHR’s internal website provides a platform for all countries to share information on the epidemic and their response, none of the information shared by our country’s CDC is being put up there,” the report quoted the vice president as saying.
Though the WHO did not publicize Taiwan’s warnings, Taiwan still took precautions itself based on the information it had, including screening airline passengers, setting up an emergency response centre and dispatching a team to Wuhan to learn more about the situation, the CNA said.
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday shared Twitter posts of Morgan Ortagus, a U.S. State department spokeswoman, on its Facebook page to confirm that Taiwan did alert the WHO to the coronavirus threat.
“Dec. 31 — that’s the same day Taiwan first tried to warn WHO of human-human transmission,” Ortagus tweeted. “Chinese authorities meanwhile silenced doctors and refused to admit human-human transmission until Jan. 20, with catastrophic consequences.”
The new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has continued to worsen since the first patients were detected in Wuhan in December. It has now spread to 195 countries, infecting lakhs of people and claiming lives of thousands.
