In light of the occurrence of emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, MERS-CoV and Zika virus disease in recent years and to implement the One Health approach, Taiwan has been seeking active participation in the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), which is an effort proposed by the U.S. government in partnership with nearly 50 nations, international organizations, and non-governmental stakeholders to ensure global heath security. Besides attending relevant meetings such as the APEC-Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) Policy Forum in Seoul, South Korea in 2015 as an APEC member and the High-Level Conference on Global Health Security in Lyon, France in 2016, in alignment with the international community, Taiwan is also employing the latest tools to evaluate the national capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases threats beginning this year. We hope to strengthen global capacity to address future threats posed by infectious diseases and ensure global health security through multinational collaboration. 　　

Starting this year, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) is using the Joint External Evaluation Tool (JEE Tool) developed by the World Health Organization in February 2016 to access the country’s capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats.　JEE Tool integrates the 11 GHSA Action Packages and the 8 IHR core capacities, which can be used to effectively measure nations’ capacity to prevent, detect and respond to public health emergencies of international concern.

To ensure the joint external evaluation can be successfully conducted, Taiwan CDC has invited a project team from the UPMC Center for Health Security, which is esteemed in the field of health security, to assist in the evaluation. The Center has played a key role in the development of GHSA. Their research personnel are multidisciplinary and extremely familiar with the short, medium, and long-term goals of the U.S. and international health organizations on issues infectious disease control and prevention as well as global health security.　In addition, the Center acts as the liaison that connects diverse and international communities of health and science experts, industry representatives, and government officials to strengthen collective efforts that improve health security. The Center sent a team of senior research personnel to visit Taiwan and host an information session that explains the process and procedures of the evaluation during March 29 and April 1, 2016. The evaluation outcomes will demonstrate whether our capacity to address public health challenges is in line with the international standards and lay a solid foundation for our participation in important international health events and contribution to global health security.

In addition, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), the Council of Agriculture (COA), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), and Academia Sinica jointly proposed a technology research project based on the GHSA action packages, “One Health Approach to Global Health Security”, which assesses our capacity to address public health challenges and integrate capacities of the agriculture and health authorities. The project pursues a multilateral and multi-sectoral approach to strengthen our capacity to prevent, detect and respond to threats posed by infectious diseases and better align with the international community in order to prevent the occurrence and transmission of infectious diseases.