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  • WORLD VIEW

Taiwan’s pandemic vice-president — from lab bench to public office and back

Successful policy and preparedness require more diverse evidence than researchers often encounter.
By
  1. Chen Chien-jen

    1. Chen Chien-jen is an epidemiologist at the Genomic Research Center at the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and is former vice-president of Taiwan.

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My CV is a strange one for an epidemiologist. Twenty years ago, I was at the National Taiwan University, training field researchers and studying liver disease, a major cause of death. When the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic broke out in 2003, I became the minister of health and led reforms that allowed Taiwan to successfully contain epidemics of H5N1 avian influenza in 2005–08, H1N1 flu in 2009–10 and COVID-19. After a brief stint back in academia, I became the minister of the National Science Council, promoting science and technology for the development of a knowledge-based economy. I was tapped to run for vice-president in 2015 and was elected to that position the following year.

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Nature 603, 203 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00649-8

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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