National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) is a research-led comprehensive university in Tainan City, Taiwan. NCKU was ranked 2nd overall in Taiwan in 2018 and is one of the top ranked universities in Asia. The university is best known for its engineering, computer science, medicine, and planning and design. NCKU is the only member from Taiwan in the Worldwide Universities Network.
As part of NCKU, National Cheng Kung University Hospital (NCKUH) is a national hospital, which was established in 1988 and is the major teaching and tertiary referral medical centre in southern Taiwan. NCKUH not only provides world-class patient care but is also a science-based research centre; in close cooperation with National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), Tainan branch. The NCKUH, NCKU, and NHRI constitutes a collaborative approach and encompasses multiple medical research areas. Up to now, NCKUH and College of Medicine remains the leading research centre for enterovirus, dengue fever, oncology, and neurology in Taiwan.
Based in southern Taiwan, and the junction between south east and north east Asia, National Cheng Kung University Hospital has many experiences in coping with dengue virus infection, severe enterovirus infection, and Kawasaki disease. Our institute as the only Asia site of DIAMOND consortium, will actively participate in clinical case recruitment and provide more diversity in both disease and ethnicity within the recruitment.
The division of Paediatric Infectious Disease of NCKUH is led by Professor Ching Chuan Liu. It first discovered enterovirus 71 as the major cause of sudden death in children during outbreaks within Taiwan in 1998. Later on, the team revealed the immune-pathogenesis of the EV71 infections with severe neurological and cardiovascular complications. From 2010, the division of Paediatric Infectious Disease of NCKU joined the Taiwan Paediatric Infectious Diseases Alliance (TPIDA) working on multicentre epidemiology of community-acquired pneumonia in children in Taiwan (2010 – 2016), the cause of childhood diarrhoea in Taiwan (2014–2017), and mycoplasma infection in children in Taiwan (2018–present).
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 848196