The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), with inter-agency cooperation, launched the “Epidemic Updates e-Net” program in August 2014 to provide the latest epidemic information on infectious diseases in order to enhance disease prevention efficiency. Furthermore, statistical data, excluding personal information, are provided to organizations, academia, industries, and people, so that they may learn about epidemics. 
 
The “Epidemic Updates e-Net” program comprises three main parts – “Epidemic Instant”, “Proactive Move”, and “Free Information for Website Construction”: 

1. Epidemic Instant: Currently, the CDC proactively releases news regarding major domestic and international epidemics via the “National Infectious Disease Statistics System”, which was established to provide daily statistics on the number of confirmed cases of various identifiable communicable diseases in every county, township, and city, in addition to information regarding the epidemics’ development trends. In addition, it is planning to upload statistics about more than 60 identifiable communicable diseases into the National Development Council’s Open Data Database by the end of the year for the public’s use. The data may be used for APP designs, websites, personal research, teaching material, etc. 

2. Collaboration between Central and Local Governments: The CDC is planning to categorize data in the identifiable communicable disease databases and national tuberculosis database by locality (county and city), so that local health authorities may take proactive measures to analyze data, thereby quickly getting a grasp on developments to initiate preventive measures. The central government is working hand in hand with local authorities to prevent the spread of diseases. 

3. Free information for website construction: The CDC is working with the Ministry of the Interior to combine daily updates of statistics on communicable diseases and geographic data systems, thus providing a free overview of data concerning the people, times, and places of the infectious diseases’ spread for website construction. Therefore, hardware and software construction costs for website development can be effectively reduced for various agencies. 

From Taiwan’s earlier experiences with outbreaks of SARS and H1N1 influenza, to outbreaks of H7N9 influenza, rabies, enterovirus and dengue fever more recently, until the current international outbreak of Ebola virus, the importance of providing timely and consistent epidemic information for preventing diseases can be seen. Through this proactive and open program, it is hoped that collaboration between central and local government agencies can be facilitated for the purpose of disease prevention, thus beginning a new era of disease prevention in Taiwan and achieving the goal of nationwide disease prevention.