Implementation of the IHR Joint External Evaluation: Taiwan's Experiences

Abstract

In February 2016, the World Health Organization developed the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) tool to independently assess country capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats as part of the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) monitoring and evaluation framework. In light of this, the Taiwan government actively engaged at least 19 government agencies or institutions and voluntarily implemented the JEE. An External Assessment Team consisting of 6 US subject matter experts conducted the external evaluation, including site visits, from June 21 to July 1, 2016. The results, published on October 18, 2016, are useful and will be translated into actions and change in the system. Based on Taiwan's experiences, early stakeholder engagement and an experts' pre-JEE pilot visit would contribute to a successful JEE process.

The Joint External Evaluation process in Cameroon: Assessing the country’s capacity for health security

“…Furthermore, pilot site visits conducted at selected national agencies by the external assessment experts prior to the JEE process was documented to be extremely useful in Taiwan. Such face-to-face conversations substantially contributed in avoiding confusion and misinterpretation of certain JEE questions [16,17]. In specific countries with security issues like in Libya, the JEE process ended up with the development of the NAPHS [18].…”

Significance of High-Containment Biological Laboratories Performing Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Biosafety Level-3 and -4 Labs

“…National Reference BSL-3 Laboratory: Taiwan CDC As part of their mission, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) has engaged with international partners to perform activities aligned with WHO and IHR for performing Joint External Evaluations of their health systems and also developed national legislature for regulating high containment laboratories, biosafety, and managing select agents and toxins (Lo, 2017;Hsieh et al, 2020;Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, 2021). In recent years, the Taiwan CDC systematically constructed a national tiered infectious disease diagnostic network, expanded infectious disease diagnostic items and capacity, and improved preparedness for emerging infectious diseases.…”