While Taiwan's efforts to participate in the WHO have always been problematic because they touch on questions of sovereignty, by May 23 this year SARS had already taken more than 60 Taiwanese lives. The disease, which had by that point been in Taiwan for two months, was running rampant, with Taiwan being deemed the area in which transmission was occurring fastest of any place in the world.
雖然台灣入會問題多年來被視為涉及主權之爭的政治議題，但是今年 SARS 肆虐，至五月二十三日止，已奪走台灣六十多條人命，二個月來疫情仍持續蔓延中，已被 WHO 列為傳染最迅速的地區。