A total of 57,500 chickens have been culled in areas around Greater Tainan and Changhua County in Taiwan’s first outbreak of the H5N2 avian influenza strain, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday.
The chicken farm in Changhua reported the disease on Dec. 27 last year, while cases at a farm in Greater Tainan were detected on Feb. 7, council officials said. The chickens in Greater Tainan were culled on Feb. 10, while the culling of the ones in Changhua was completed yesterday morning, the officials added.
The outbreak was under control and no chickens at nearby farms were found to be sick, added Wu Ming-pin (吳名彬), deputy director of Greater Tainan’s Animal Health Inspection and Protection Office.
Photo: Yang Chin-cheng, Taipei Times
The H5N2 strain cannot be passed from human to human and none of the three farmers or six inspectors showed symptoms of infection, the Centers for Disease Control said.
However, poultry product exports worth NT$700 million (US$23.8 million) might be banned by the nation’s trading partners because Taiwan could be listed as an infected region if the virus is confirmed to be highly pathogenic, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said.
Poultry meat is one of the country’s top poultry product exports, with a value of between NT$360 million and NT$370 million per year, said Hsu Kuei-sen (許桂森), director of the council’s husbandry division.
Other exports that could be affected include preserved eggs, salted duck eggs, raw eggs and pet birds, Hsu added.
If the exports are banned, Taiwan’s poultry trade would resume only if no H5N2 case appears for three months. The bureau said it would report the outbreak to the World Organisation for Animal Health.
CALL FOR SUPPORT: President William Lai called on lawmakers across party lines to ensure the livelihood of Taiwanese and that national security is protected President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday called for bipartisan support for Taiwan’s investment in self-defense capabilities at the christening and launch of two coast guard vessels at CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard in Kaohsiung. The Taipei (台北) is the fourth and final ship of the Chiayi-class offshore patrol vessels, and the Siraya (西拉雅) is the Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) first-ever ocean patrol vessel, the government said. The Taipei is the fourth and final ship of the Chiayi-class offshore patrol vessels with a displacement of about 4,000 tonnes, Lai said. This ship class was ordered as a result of former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) 2018
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
GLOBAL PROJECT: Underseas cables ‘are the nervous system of democratic connectivity,’ which is under stress, Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said The government yesterday launched an initiative to promote global cooperation on improved security of undersea cables, following reported disruptions of such cables near Taiwan and around the world. The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to “bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a seminar in Taipei. The project would be known as “RISK,” an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform and knowledge building, he said at the seminar, titled “Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum.” Taiwan sits at a vital junction on
RSS