The Council of Agriculture confirmed yesterday an outbreak of a lesser strain of the bird flu virus H5N2 at a chicken farm in Kaohsiung County’s Luchu Township (路竹).
“The problem has been resolved. Starting in October, the farm was disinfected and we monitored the situation as if it were a highly pathogenic virus. The affected chickens were culled on Nov. 14,” Agriculture Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) told a press conference yesterday.
Chen said the results of a second round of samples from the affected chicken farm were confirmed by a panel of experts to be a low-pathogenic strain of H5N2.
Avian influenza has many different subtypes, including H5N1 and H5N2. The H5N1 subtype is highly pathogenic and can cause fever, coughing, sore throat, muscle ache, pneumonia or death when transmitted from birds to humans. There are no reports of H5N2 transmission to humans.
News of the outbreak were first made public by the council at a press conference on Wednesday, during which Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa (胡興華) said the council suspected an outbreak had occurred at a Kaohsiung chicken farm, adding that an investigation had been launched on Oct. 21.
Asked why it had taken so long for the test results to be made public, Animal Health Research Institute deputy director Lee Shu-hui (李淑慧) said “the examination requires careful work and is a complex process.”
“Our first results on Nov. 12 showed what looked like a high-pathogenic strain of H5N2, but as less than 3 percent of chickens in the population died, the result did not agree with the lab test,” Lee said.
To ensure they did not miss a potential threat, Lee said her team decided to do a second examination while seeking to avoid causing a panic. She said that as soon as the lab had the slightest evidence that there may have been a bird flu outbreak in October, she informed the council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine to initiate epidemic prevention mechanisms.
While the affected farm was thoroughly disinfected, farms within a radius of 3km have also been monitored since October, she said.
“After viral separation and cultivation, second results showed that the chickens had a H5N2 Intravenous Pathogenicity Index [IVPI] of 0.89, which makes it low-pathogenic,” she said.
An IVPI over 1.2 would be high-pathogenic.
Responding to comments by former minister of health Twu Shiing-jer (�?�) that testing for avian flu would only take one to two days, Lee said that what Twu was referred to was identifying H5N1 contamination in humans.
“I can also have results within two days, but my results may show a negative while a longer cultivation time may show a positive result,” she said.
Regarding the risk to humans, Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Director-General Watson Sung (宋華聰) said there were no known cases of H5N2 mutating into the H5N1 strain, which can affect humans.
This was the only instance of bird flu in Taiwan, Soong said, adding that “high” or “low” pathogenic referred to chickens, not humans.
“On Nov. 14, the farm owner voluntarily culled all the chickens as a precautionary measure,” Chen said. “Now that we have confirmed the results, we will report the case to the World Organization for Animal Health. We will also continue to monitor the 76 chicken farms around the affected farm for three months before applying for poultry exportation to Japan.”
Chen said losses in sales of chicken to Japan would be in the several millions of NT dollars.
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
TRUST: The KMT said it respected the US’ timing and considerations, and hoped it would continue to honor its commitments to helping Taiwan bolster its defenses and deterrence US President Donald Trump is delaying a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan to ensure his visit to Beijing is successful, a New York Times report said. The weapons sales package has stalled in the US Department of State, the report said, citing US officials it did not identify. The White House has told agencies not to push forward ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it said. The two last month held a phone call to discuss trade and geopolitical flashpoints ahead of the summit. Xi raised the Taiwan issue and urged the US to handle arms sales to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding
Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s (黎智英) fraud conviction and prison sentence were yesterday overturned by a Hong Kong court, in a surprise legal decision that comes soon after Lai was jailed for 20 years on a separate national security charge. Judges Jeremy Poon (潘兆初), Anthea Pang (彭寶琴) and Derek Pang (彭偉昌) said in the judgement that they allowed the appeal from Lai, and another defendant in the case, to proceed, as a lower court judge had “erred.” “The Court of Appeal gave them leave to appeal against their conviction, allowed their appeals, quashed the convictions and set aside the sentences,” the judges
RSS