On May 7, 2008, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) answered media inquiries concerning potential joint venture with China to tackle public health problems together.Specifically, Taiwan CDC stated that the agency has hoped for closer collaboration with China to tackle the ongoing enterovirus oubtreaks together through sharing Taiwan CDC’s 10 years of experience in controlling EV71 infection in Taiwan, particularly its accomplishments in the development of EV71 testing kits and its experience in treating severe cases of EV71 infection.

The Taiwan CDC spokesperson, also the Deputy Director of the agency, Jih-Hwa Chou, said that, as of now, official contacts or exchanges between infectious disease control units in China and Taiwan have been very few.In fact, the only one time in recorded history when such official contact has been made was the “Kinmen-Xiamen Health Conference” held three years ago.Other contacts between cross-strait, infectious disease control units have been limited to communications among local governments.As numerous cross-strait infectious disease control issues are usually intertwined, Taiwan CDC has made several attempts in the past to establish an official, bilateral communications platform that facilitates easier communication with the infectious disease control units in China through the Mainland Affairs Council and the International Committee of the Red Cross.However, such attempts for further communication and closer collaboration with China have failed in view of Taiwan’s political status vis-à-vis China and China’s opposition to Taiwan’s repeated membership application bids to join the World Health Organization (WHO).Recently, outbreaks of enterovirus infection have been reported in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.Although epidemic information concerning the current enterovirus outbreaks have been exchanged between China and Taiwan, the information exchanged were all from what had been published in the press release.