How is Taiwan contributing to the World in efforts to eliminate Covid-19?
Taiwan was the first country to ask for a response on the suspicion of a potential outbreak in neighboring China’s Wuhan Province in the first week of January, 2020. Being the closest country to the outbreak, the island country has been the most successful in contacting the spread and limiting it to less than 500 and seven deaths. Once the rumor of an outbreak started in China, Taiwan requested additional information through a mail from the World Health Organisation (WHO), about the nature, medium of spread and the origin of the now declared pandemic that has infected more than 16 million people around the world.
Millions of people travel for work and residential reasons between China and Taiwan. The island country would have been the biggest victim of the pandemic if the early precautions wouldn’t have been taken. The success can be attributed to its past experience of SARS for which Taiwan was the biggest victim. Incidentally, SARS too originated in China. Apart from the early precautions, the biggest contribution to control the spread was made by its citizens and the government which too early measures and educated its citizens on the role they need to play.
While being the most successful in the battle against the pandemic, Taiwan through its own institutions and resident pharma companies, technology companies, and Universities have been supporting the world to take on the battle. In this blog, we’ll see how the Country is helping the world through its research and help to the countries across the world.
Vaccine Manufacturer Adimmune Corporation to start Human trials in August.
As the coronavirus vaccine candidate by Taiwanese vaccine manufacturer Adimmune Corporation has proven effective in animal subjects, the next trial is set to start in August on live humans. The trial is carried with the support of national Taiwan university and expects to enroll nearly 1000 candidates to participate. The University vice president Chang Shan-chwen who is also a Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) Advisory Specialist Panel Convener. The trials are expected to be completed in 3 months and are promising for both Taiwan and the World.
In collaboration with India based ALKEM Laboratories and Veritaz Healthcare, Taiwan has shared its Response strategy to 14k+ Healthcare Personnel.
With the help of video conferencing, Taiwan has assisted more than 14k Indian Healthcare personnel with its response strategy with the help of ALKEM Laboratories and Veritaz Healthcare. For Taiwan’s Southbound policy, India is a key strategic partner and has extended the knowledge support to the Indian Subcontinent.
Taiwan extended International Humanitarian Aid through medical devices and masks to the US and Europe.
Taiwan is among the top manufacturers of Medical protection kits including Personal Protection Equipment Kits (PPEs) and Surgical Masks. Taiwan rationed the surgical masks to all its citizens in the initial stages of the outbreak. Not just that, the island country also extended Humanitarian aid and assistance by supplying masks and PPE kits to the United States and European Countries to tackle the immediate situation.
In association with Stanford University, Taiwan is testing a new model to resume International travel.
International air travel has taken the biggest blow amid the Covid crisis. Not resuming services at the earliest will push many airlines for bankruptcy and loss of jobs to millions of people employed in the aviation sector. To resume the operations in a safe and efficient model that is adopted to meet the new norms of quarantine on arrival.
To avoid this red tape entry on travelling abroad, Taiwan in association with Stanford University School of Medicine has initiated an experiment under which a sample of 500 people will fly from San Francisco to Taipei after testing negative for infection and completing a quarantine period. They will further be tested after two days of arrival during the 14 day mandatory quarantine for anyone entering the country. The goal of the experiment is to find the shortest safe quarantine period so that people who have to make brief trips for business could be allowed to leave quarantine after a few days rather than two weeks.
Boston and Taiwan based Docsun AI Clinical Laboratory is working with China Medical University on trials to detect infection within seconds.
Taiwan based Docsun AI Clinical AI Laboratory has found a breakthrough in the testing practice that is conventionally employed for testing. Current testing methods take a time span between 6 hrs to 7 days to confirm the infection. To cut down the confirmation time to mere seconds, the AI based startup has created an algorithm to match the healthy lungs and Covid infected lungs as the latter will have severe abnormalities if infected. The virus will affect the respiratory system of a human.
