The World Health Organization (WHO) lifted its SARS advisory against travel to Taiwan June 17, noting that the situation there had "improved significantly" with a drastic drop in the number of new cases reported each day.
"The SARS crisis in Taiwan has been taken very seriously at all levels," said Dr Cathy Roth, a WHO virologist. "SARS stimulated vast and very rapid improvements in the health infrastructure, especially in the areas of hospital infection control procedures, systems for data collection and reporting, mobilization of the public, and coordination of all agencies contributing to the outbreak response.
Beijing is now the only remaining city subject to the WHO's travel advisory.
Public health authorities in Taiwan first asked the WHO to lift the travel advisory on Taiwan in early June, when the number of SARS cases in Taiwan began to noticeably decline.
The authorities said they were dumbfounded when they received word June 10 that the World Health Organization (WHO) had not agreed to remove Taiwan from the WHO's travel advisory list, but President Chen Shui-bian expressed confidence that Taiwan would be removed from the list soon.
President Chen also thanked the U.S. clinicians and epidemiologists who have been working in Taiwan since the first SARS case was reported there in mid-March. "We owe our initial success in taming the SARS outbreak in part to their assistance," the president said.
To date, SARS has claimed the lives of 83 people and infected another 698 in Taiwan.
Worldwide, the disease has killed 799 people.
