This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the SARS outbreak. The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) has specifically picked July 5, which is the day that Taiwan was lifted from the list of areas with recent local transmission of SARS by the World Health Organization in 2003, to hold the APEC conference on “The Innovation, Achievement and Sustainable Development in Public Health Emergency Response System 10 Years after the SARS Epidemic”in gis MOTC Convention Center. The a day-and-a-half conference, gathering 30 delegates from 14 member economies, including Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam, 1 delegate from the United Kingdom and about 90 domestic experts, will be held from July 5 to 6.

Over two-thirds of APEC member economies were struck by SARS and have since begun to strengthen their respective disease surveillance system, trainings of public health workers, and relevant reforms of public health system in order to increase their capacity to respond to public health emergency events. After committing 10 years of hard work in improving public health preparedness system, now it is the right time to share and discuss the successes and lessons learned following the outbreak. Hence, Taiwan proposed the project of organizing the conference in the APEC health working group meeting earlier this year and has received support and budgets from the APEC.

For this conference, Taiwan CDC has especially invited Prof. D.A. Henderson, a giant in the history of public health, who has made magnificent contributions to the global eradication of smallpox, to deliver the keynote speech, “The Dawn of a New Era for Infectious Disease Challenges”. In addition, several experts from APEC member economies have been invited to share and discuss on relevant topics, including “Innovation and Application in Health Information Technology”, “Public Health Human Resource and System Reform”, and “Sustainable Development in Prevention and Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases”.

Through sharing experiences with APEC member economies, Taiwan CDC wishes not only to show the improvement made in public health systems in Taiwan during the post SARS period, but also to enhance collaboration and cooperation with APEC member economies as well as to expand Taiwan’s participation in health-related affairs in APEC.