A Chinese mainland official Wednesday promised that the Chinese government would ensure Taiwan is directly connected to the World Health Organization system on global health alerts.

The mainland had consulted the WHO secretariat to make arrangements to apply the International Health Regulations (IHR) to Taiwan, said State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Fan Liqing.

Addressing a Taiwan reporter's question about the island's desire to become an observer of the World Health Assembly, Fan said the mainland could discuss with Taiwan and make rational arrangements on its participation in the activities of international organizations on condition it would not result in "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan".

"We hope that both sides across the Taiwan Straits will make joint efforts to seek sound solutions for this issue," she said.

The mainland was sincerely concerned about the health of Taiwan people and was taking active and concrete action to help them, she said at a press conference in Beijing.

The regulations support a global health alert mechanism that prevents the international spread of disease, and provides a public health response, according to the WHO.

The WHO, which included Taiwan in the regulations in January, will send its global public health alerts to Taiwan directly, instead of through the mainland, and involve the Taiwan Center for Disease Control (CDC) in its discussions on the prevention of epidemics.

The WHO will also send experts to Taiwan in case of the outbreak of an epidemic.

Fan said the Chinese government's attitude showed that "we are highly responsible in regard to global epidemic prevention" and Taiwan health experts had open channels to receive technology and information from the WHO.

(Xinhua News Agency February 11, 2009)