[轉錄]Nature:Taiwan left isolated in fight a …
※ [本文轉錄自 MedHuman 看板]
作者: Tosca (...o_O...) 看板: MedHuman
標題: Nature:Taiwan left isolated in fight against SARS
時間: Thu Apr 24 16:41:49 2003
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v422/n6933/full/422652a_fs.html
看到覺得好感動呀...居然是在Nature上面刊出來的....
不是新聞雜誌 不是Time
而是全世界最頂尖的學術期刊....
Taiwan left isolated in fight against SARS
DAVID CYRANOSKI
[TOKYO]
Researchers in Taiwan say they are being shut out of the global investigation
into the pneumonia-like disease that is sweeping the world because their
country isn't recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is
coordinating the study.
Mei-Shang Ho, an epidemiologist at Taiwan's Academia Sinica, is one of several
researchers who say they have been denied access to samples and information.
Ho wanted more data on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) after it
affected two Taiwanese patients in early March. But WHO officials told Ho and
other investigators that they should instead approach the People's Republic of
China in Beijing, which the organization does recognize.
"Knowing the information is there but not being able to get it is truly
frustrating," says Ho, who decided to travel to Beijing last week to get
first-hand data on the disease's spread. "We can't get any information from the
WHO," says Yuan-Tsong Chen, director of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences
at the Academia Sinica in Taipei.
China has never recognized the government of Taiwan, where Chinese nationalists
retreated when the communists won control of the mainland in 1949. It
considers Taiwan to be its province, and since 1972, when the United Nations
admitted the communist government in Beijing, the WHO and other bodies have
denied Taiwan membership.
Unable to participate in meetings between the WHO's collaborating centres,
Taiwan's researchers must rely on the WHO's website. "By the time the
information is in the public domain, it's probably out of date," says Chen. WHO
officials are keen to visit mainland China, but have not asked to visit Taiwan
.
Taiwanese researchers say they have also struggled to obtain materials such as
diagnostic reagents. To test Taiwan's 23 probable SARS cases for the
coronavirus thought to be responsible, researchers wanted to use antibody tests
distributed by the WHO. "We were told to go to Beijing," says Chien-Jen Chen,
an epidemiologist at National Taiwan University and chair of the island's SARS
advisory committee.
The WHO says its hands are tied because Taiwan is not a member. Iain Simpson,
a WHO spokesman in Geneva, says that the organization arranged for Taiwan to
receive a visitor from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta, Georgia, one of its collaborating centres. "There's little more that
we can do," he adds.
Government officials are highlighting the situation to promote Taiwan's case
for full representation at the United Nations and the WHO. "We share our
public-health officials' anger that for political reasons we are denied
access to the world health system," said Parris Chang, a legislator with
Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, on a visit to Washington DC last
week. He added that Taiwan is demanding observer status at the World Health
Assembly, the WHO's governing body.
Congressman Sherrod Brown (Democrat, Ohio) backed Chang and called for the
United States to support the recognition of Taiwan more vigorously. Taiwan's
current plight is an "unjustified violation of the basic human right to
healthcare", says Brown.
Despite its isolation, Taiwan seems to be dealing successfully with the
epidemic. Since mid-March, when the first cases were recognized, it has
reported one new case a day, compared with five each day in Singapore and 40
in Hong Kong. There have been no deaths.
Taiwanese researchers have also enjoyed some collaborative success. A Taiwanese
group was involved in a study that isolated the coronavirus from patients in
Taiwan and elsewhere (T. G. Ksiazek et al. N. Engl. J. Med.
doi:10.1056/NEJMoa030781; 2003).
Researchers at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver,
British Columbia, said on 12 April that they have sequenced the coronavirus
that is thought to cause SARS (http://www.bcgsc.bc.ca).
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.csie.ntu.edu.tw)
◆ From: 140.112.212.22
※ 編輯: Tosca 來自: 140.112.212.22 (04/24 16:42)
※ 編輯: Tosca 來自: 140.112.212.22 (04/24 16:42)
※ 編輯: Tosca 來自: 140.112.212.22 (04/24 16:43)
推
推 203.64.247.100 04/24,
推 203.64.247.100 04/24
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.csie.ntu.edu.tw)
◆ From: 61.60.82.34
討論串 (同標題文章)