The World Health Organization appealed yesterday for more urgent action by China against bird flu, warning that its "window of opportunity" to contain the disease might be slipping away as the government expanded its ban on poultry exports to three new areas with suspect cases.
The government tried to reassure foreign customers of its huge poultry industry, announcing tighter health controls on chickens, ducks and other birds from areas still allowed to export.
The WHO called on the communist government to share more information about the disease, step up monitoring for possible human cases and to take precautions so that workers engaged in the mass slaughter of birds aren't accidentally infected.
The appeal came after China on Friday announced confirmed cases in its central provinces of Hunan and Hubei and suspected cases in the financial capital of Shanghai and the provinces of Anhui in the east and Guangdong in the south. The country's first confirmed case was found Tuesday in a duck in the southern region of Guangxi.
"We have repeatedly said there is a brief window of opportunity to act within China," Dr. Julie Hall, a WHO official in Beijing, said in a statement issued by the agency. "This latest news strongly suggests that the window is getting smaller with each passing day."
China has reported no human cases of the disease that has been found in 10 Asian countries. Eight people have died in Vietnam and two in Thailand.
China on Friday banned poultry exports from Shanghai, Anhui and Guangdong, adding to a prohibition already in place on Hunan, Hubei and Guangxi, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, is where the earliest cases of what would become SARS were reported in November, 2002.
In the eastern province of Shandong, a major poultry exporter with no reported cases, producers were told to restrict access to farms and undergo hygiene inspections, Xinhua said. It said Shandong exports up to 350,000 tonnes of poultry products every year.
State newspapers tried to reassure China's public that the virus was under control, showing government workers in masks, gloves and head-to-toe protective suits spraying disinfectant on poultry farms.
As a result of the outbreak in China of the fatal form of bird flu, the Council of Agriculture had started slaughtering chickens in southern Taiwan that contain the H5N2 virus, while several government administrations are monitoring illegal chicken imports from China.
Taiwan situation
"Chickens on three farms in Chiayi County and Tainan County have tested positive for the H5N2 virus. So far, two poultry farms in Chiayi County have already completed the mass slaughter of chickens and the process is still ongoing at the farm in Tainan County," said Yeh Ying (
The chickens were drugged before being killed and cremated at a local incinerator. The farms were disinfected chemically after the mass slaughter.
According to a Chinese-language media report, about 18,000 chickens at two farms in Chiayi County were killed, while 16,000 chickens in Tainan County are to be slaughtered today. In order to fight the spread of avian flu, a joint mechanism was set up on Friday among several government ministries to ensure stricter inspection of chickens in the next 6 months.
According to Chen Yu-hsin (陳雨新), director of the bureau's Animal Inspection Department, the bird flu that was discovered on the farms in Taiwan is of the H5N2 strand, which cannot infect humans.
"H5N2 is a less dangerous strand as it only affects birds. However, the virus strand H5N1, which was found in Vietnam and Thailand, is more critical as it can affect humans too," Chen said.
Yeh indicated that the price of chickens has not been much affected by news of the outbreak.
"From what I have heard so far, the price of chickens in poultry markets has not been affected much," Yeh said.
He said that the COA has no jurisdiction over the crackdown on illegal imported chickens, but other administrations are working on the matter while the Coast Guard Administration and the Directorate General of Customs are keeping an eye on illegal poultry imports.
Yeh said that the COA has also opened a hotline where the public can report illegally imported poultry.
The number is 0800-039131.
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS