Taiwan to work with Hong Kong and mainland China on Mers
The island, which has yet to face an outbreak of deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome, signs information-sharing and other cooperation programmes to fight cross-border epidemic
Taiwan has raised its alert against travel to South Korea to the second-most serious level, asking travellers to avoid visits to the country and especially hospitals in Seoul.
The alert level by the island's Centres for Disease Control on Tuesday is higher than that of the World Health Organisation, Singapore and Japan, but lower than Hong Kong, Macau and the UAE.
The move came after the island said it had cooperated with mainland China and Hong Kong by sharing information about the deadly outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) in South Korea.
“Ever since reports of the possible outbreak in South Korea, and one of its residents travelled to China, we have remained on high alert in dealing with the issue,” said a spokeswoman at Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Centres for Disease Control.
The centre had asked the mainland and Hong Kong to share details about how the Mers outbreak was affecting both areas and had also kept up to date about their respective measures taken to contain the outbreak, she said.
Taiwan has signed information-sharing and other cooperation programmes with both Hong Kong and the mainland to fight the cross-border epidemic.
