To enhance the health care cooperation between Taiwan and Somaliland, the Taiwan Representative Office in the Republic of Somaliland held a virtual conference on “Maternal and Infant Health Care Improvement Project and sharing experience in fighting COVID-19” at the Taiwan Representative Office earlier this week.
Related parties, including the the Somaliland Ministry of Health Development, Hargeisa Group Hospital, Ministry of Foreign Affairs ROC (Taiwan), Taiwan ICDF (International Cooperation and Development Fund), Taiwan and Somaliland Representative Offices and Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital attended the conference.
Today’s conference is the follow-up of the signing of the ICDF Cooperation Framework Agreement by the Foreign Minister of the ROC (Taiwan) Joseph Wu and the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Somaliland Yasin Hagi Mohamoud on 17th August 2020, the date that Taiwan Representative Office was officially established.
Today’s conference is also the follow-up of the meeting in which Ambassador Allen C. Lou called on H. E. President Muse Bihi Abdi on 26th October to brief him on the Taiwan – Somaliland comprehensive cooperation.
President Bihi has high expectations as regards the Taiwan-Somaliland health care cooperation and its potential to benefit Somalilanders.
Health care cooperation is the “Flagship” cooperation between Taiwan and Somaliland.
Taiwan is developing four dimensions of health care cooperation to work with like-minded countries in order to implement them in Somaliland. Taiwan will continue to share their experience and capacity building with Somaliland.
The Taiwan Representative Office, on behalf of the Taiwan Government, also donated 2,880 PCR Reagents which accounts for around 20% of Somaliland’s test cases and surgical masks to the Ministry of Health Development to support Somaliland proactively combatting the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is worth mentioning that the surgical masks are sponsored by Takming University of Science and Technology of Taiwan in the nation’s capital, Taipei.
This also shows the efforts to integrate the strategic medical resources provided by the Taiwan Government and private sectors to channel to Somaliland.
Taiwan also in the last months supported Somaliland to combat Covid-19 with medical equipment including high quality masks, protective clothes, PPE, tablets, infrared forehead thermometers, infrared thermal imagers which can detect multi-body temperatures, and high-quality PCRs (according to the report released by Ministry of Health Development, these PCRs are the best among those donated by other countries and the WHO), in addition to reagents, and quality rice to relive the food shortage caused by COVID-19.
Taiwan can help. Taiwan is helping. Taiwan can contribute, and has long been contributing on many fronts.
This article first appeared in the Somaliland Chronicle and is republished with permission.