Under the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) and the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Global Cooperation and Training Framework (TECRO-AIT GCTF), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) and the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) co-organized the “International Training Course on Molecular Diagnosis for MERS-CoV” held at the Center for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention in Tainan City, Taiwan during August 12-14, 2015. Experts from both agencies served as the lecturers of the training course. A total of 17 laboratory professionals from 9 countries in the Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia regions participated in the training course. The course was designed to strengthen the participating countries’ laboratory diagnostic capacities and help prepare the laboratory professionals in the region with the tools needed to respond to challenges posed by MERS-CoV. Moreover, the training course is also in line with the core capacity requirements for surveillance and response described in the International Health Regulations (2005) and the goal of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) Action Packages to promptly detect and diagnose emerging infectious disease pathogens such as SARS or MERS coronavirus, prevent disease transmission and ensure global health security.

This is yet another collaboration between the U.S. and Taiwan since the “Training Course for Preparing Healthcare Workers to Work in Ebola Treatment Units” co-hosted by the two nations in this March and also the first training course organized after the TECRO-AIT GCTF was signed on June 1, 2015. US CDC sent four experts to participate in the training course as the lecturers, including two nosocomial infection prevention and control experts and two molecular laboratory professionals. The training course included lectures by the experts and hands-on exercises that cover topics such as epidemiology, preparedness and infection control of MERS-CoV, molecular diagnosis of MERS-CoV, nucleic acid extraction platform, RT-PCR, and laboratory biosafety. Hands-on practice on RT-PCR was also part of the training course. Some of the reagents used during the hands-on exercises were brought to Taiwan by the lecturers from US CDC.  

17 laboratory professionals coming from countries in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia region, including Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam participated in the training course. The training course aimed to enrich the participants’ knowledge in disease prevention and control, train their skills in testing for MERS-CoV, provide an opportunity for them to interact and discuss issues of mutual concerns with one another, and establish a laboratory network in the Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia regions that could offer more collaboration opportunities and effectively increase the regional capacity to respond to infectious diseases.