Fulfilling Our International Responsibilities: Taiwan’s Sixth Year at the World Health Assembly

The theme of the 67th WHA was climate change and its impact on health. On May 16, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta led a team of 25 MOHW section heads to Geneva, where the assembly is held each year. According to the MOHW’s Office of International Cooperation, this year’s team was the biggest yet, and the reason for this is a renewed focus on increased participation in the WHA.

Climate and human life are intimately and inextricably linked. Climate change has already led to changes in the spread and prevalence of diseases, with heart disease rising as the weather gets colder, and dengue fever and skin cancer rising as the weather gets hotter. On top of this, drought has become an even bigger threat, impacting food security and human health.

Chiu gave a speech at the assembly on this year’s theme, and Taiwan’s representatives were active participants in the 30 different technical meetings that were part of this year’s WHA, from the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, health promotion, and preparedness for major flu epidemics, to traditional medicines and aging societies.

Additionally, they engaged representatives from other countries in bilateral and multilateral exchanges; the goal was to engage 50 countries in bilateral talks.

Already Taiwan’s participation in the WHA—albeit as “Chinese Taipei”—has become nothing out of the ordinary, and can be considered proof of the effectiveness of the Ma administration’s “flexible diplomacy” policy.

When Taiwan was ejected from the WHO in 1972, the nation was left unable to participate in discussions of international health policy and without viable communication channels in the realm of global health issues. Cut off from the latest information and technology in terms of disease monitoring and prevention, Taiwan was isolated from global disease control mechanisms.

Thirty-five years later, in 1997, Taiwan began fighting for observer status in the WHA as a “health entity.” After 12 years of campaigning, in 2009 the “Department of Health, Chinese Tai­pei” was finally invited to become the assembly’s seventh observer agency.

Since then, contact between Taiwan and the WHA secretariat has continued to grow. Since signing on to the International Health Regulations in 2009, Taiwan has been in touch with the WHO over 300 times regarding major international health emergencies, as well as being invited to participate in related technical meetings and training programs.

By participating in the WHA, Taiwan has been able to show the world what our healthcare professionals are capable of, while also developing an international network of healthcare contacts. In this age of the global village, in which diseases can jump borders with ease, no one can afford to be excluded from healthcare and disease prevention efforts.