On February 20, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced that in order to regularly monitor the changes in seropositivity of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Taiwan, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been requested to designate the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation (Taiwan Blood Foundation) to implement the "SARS-CoV-2 antibody surveillance program." Taiwan Blood Foundation plans to carry out stratified sampling on about 7,000 archive samples of blood donated between January and June this year. Taiwan Blood Foundation will also provide unidentifiable data and 0.5 cc of blood samples from the blood donors to the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) for SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection and data analysis.

Starting in the second half of February, Taiwan Blood Foundation is set to notify donors of the selected samples via email. Those who do not have an email address will be notified by mail. If donors of selected samples are not willing to have their samples used in this surveillance system, they should call Taiwan CDC at 1922 or the toll-free Communicable Disease Reporting hotline, 0800-001922, within the two weeks following receipt of Taiwan Blood Foundation's notification. When calling either hotline, such donors should leave their blood bag number or name, ID number, and date of birth so that Taiwan Blood Foundation will then remove their sample from the sampling pool before providing samples to Taiwan CDC. Refusal to have their samples used in this surveillance system does not affect any donors' rights and interests with regard to blood donation centers.