Submitted by TECOSF, May 24, 2007 14:04

Taiwan was rejected yet again this year. The majority of WHO member states voted against including the Taiwan bid in its agenda last week.

>>Taiwan loses bid to join WHO

Let's look at some basic facts about Taiwan, WHO and world health:

1) Taiwan's public and private sectors have donated more than $450 million in medical and humanitarian aid to more than 90 countries over the past 10 years.

2) Taiwanese doctors and other health-care professionals have the skills to provide services to the widest possible range of beneficiaries. At home, their dedication and implementation of a superior health-care system has led the Economist to rank Taiwan the second-healthiest nation in the world.

3) Article 3 of the Constitution of the WHO stipulates: "Membership in the Organization shall be open to all states". The WHO constitution also allows great flexibility giving "official relations" with organizations and countries. Observer status was given to the Holy See, Palestine, and the international Committee of the Red Cross. The WHO constitution deliberately allowed this wide range of participation to best meet its goal: to "promote and protect the health of all people."

4) China and WHO signed a secret memorandum of understanding requiring that WHO obtain China's permission before sharing information with Taiwan or inviting Taiwanese doctors or officials to conferences.

5) When SARS broke out in March 2003, WHO and China refused to share information with Taiwan at the critical initial stages of the outbreak, putting Taiwan and many other countries at greater risk. Help from the WHO did not arrive until seven weeks later, in mid-May.

6) Nearly 200,000 flights arrived at or departed from Taiwan annually, with up to 25 million international and domestic passengers entering or existing Taiwan. The H5N1 virus (bird flu) had been confirmed in 6 countries: China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Taiwan is geographically close to these six countries and has frequent exchanges and interactions with them. This included 1,183 flights between Taiwan and these countries every week. Should an epidemic break out in Taiwan, it could spread rapidly around the world and pose a severe threat to the world's health and safety.

Keeping Taiwan out of the WHO is dangerous and contradictory to the organization's objectives. And the fact that Taiwan's participation in the WHO is subject to China's approval, even for technical meetings makes the rejection of Taiwan's bid inhuman and unjust.

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