Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (center)(Photo courtesy of CNA)
Taipei, May 27 (CNA) Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung () said Saturday that he held 59 talks with 31 countries and 28 international organizations on the sidelines of this year's World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting, which is taking place May 22-31 in Geneva.
Despite Taiwan's exclusion from this year's WHA conference due to China's obstruction, Chen led a delegation to Geneva, where he held bilateral talks with representatives of WHA participating countries and international organizations to discuss health and medical issues of global concern.
At a news conference in Taipei on his return, Chen said that as of May 26, he and his delegation had held 59 meetings with 31 countries, including the United States, and 28 international organizations.
Chen said he also had an opportunity to meet with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former health minister of Ethiopia and director-general-elect of the World Health Organization, on the sidelines of the WHA.
Taiwan also organized two forums in Geneva over the past week, one of which was the Taiwan-Switzerland Joint Forum on Health Insurance that was held May 23 in collaboration with the Swiss Society for Health Policy, he said.
The other was an international forum on response to epidemics, which took place on May 24 and was attended by participants from Japan ,the U.S. and others, Chen said.
He expressed the hope that the cooperation programs discussed in the bilateral talks and forums on the sidelines of the WHA would be implemented within a year.
Taiwan had hoped to attend this year's WHA meeting in Geneva as an observer, as it had done over the past eight years, but it did not receive an invitation from the World Health Organization (WHO) because of China's opposition.
The WHA is the WHO's decision-making body and meets annually to discuss health issues of global concern and formulate policies.
At Saturday's news conference, Chen said Beijing repeated during the WHA session that Taiwan is part of China.
Chen said Taiwan can take good care of itself on health issues and can contribute to the global efforts in combating epidemics but firsthand disease information is key to its disease prevention efforts.
Taiwan first attended the WHA meeting as an observer in 2009, a year after former President Ma Ying-jeou came to power and began pursuing a more conciliatory policy toward Beijing.
Taiwan had taken part in every WHA meeting since then, until this year.
Its exclusion is widely seen as the latest move by China to clamp down on Taiwan's international participation, a strategy that has become more aggressive since President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, who is less conciliatory toward China, came to power in May 2016.
