Bear Necessity: Why has Taiwan sought China’s help for its giant panda?

Amid rise in tensions with Beijing after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August, Taiwan has sought China’s help for the treatment of giant panda.

Taipei Zoo housing the bear, Tuan Tuan, has appealed for help from experts in China after a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan revealed the panda has a life-threatening brain lesion, reports CNN.

As per China Daily, experts in the mainland country have expressed keenness to provide technical support and assistance for the giant panda’s treatment.

The 18-year-old bear, along with his partner Yuan Yuan, was a gift from China to Taiwan in 2008 as part of its ‘panda diplomacy’.

How did Tuan Tuan’s illness come to light? What is China’s panda diplomacy?

Let’s have a closer look:

What happened to Tuan Tuan?

The zoo staff in Taipei noticed Tuan Tuan behaving ‘abnormally’ in late August.

On 23 August, the panda had a three-minute seizure, which the zoo thought was due to epilepsy.

Tuan Tuan lost his appetite and white foam appeared around his mouth, reports CGTN.

However, an MRI scan in September showed Tuan Tuan had local large-scale necrosis and edema on the left side of its brain, zoo veterinarian Cheng Chiu-hung informed.

“The left cerebral lobe and posterior lobe have local large-scale necrosis and surrounding edema, and the right cerebral lobe has local small-scale edema,” Cheng was quoted as saying by Taipei Times.

She said they are waiting for the results of a fluid analysis before deciding the course of treatment for the bear.

Given Tuan Tuan’s age, such a brain condition is “considered very serious”, Cheng added.

As per CGTN, an 18-year-old panda would be about 50 to 60 years old in human terms.

Tuan Tuan, one of Taiwan’s beloved pandas living at the Taipei Zoo, suffered a brain lesion today