New Taipei City is on high alert after a local slaughterhouse reported H5 avian influenza infections in chickens on three of its nine slaughter lines.
The New Taipei City Domestic Poultry Slaughterhouse on Friday found one chicken on each of the three lines showed symptoms of avian flu infection, such as sporadic redness on the body, swelling around the eyes and hemorrhaging on the feet, the New Taipei City Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office said yesterday.
Veterinarians at the slaughterhouse informed the office and the Council of Agriculture of the findings.
Photo: CNA
An investigation traced the infected poultry to two chicken farms, one in Yunlin County and the other in Taoyuan, the office said. Based on the findings, 40 other suspect chicken carcasses were frozen and sealed, it said.
Local animal quarantine authorities were notified of the need to quarantine the sources, while the three slaughter lines were shut down for sterilization, it added.
Laboratory tests have confirmed that the problematic chickens were infected with the H5 strain, the office said, and as a result, the 40 frozen chickens were destroyed in an effort to prevent the virus from spreading.
New Taipei City consumes the most chickens of any of the nation’s municipalities, and the number of chickens slaughtered there reaches 30,000 to 40,000 per day, the office said.
No avian flu outbreaks have been reported in the city, but it is crucial to ensure that the slaughterhouse is completely sterilized and to reinforce safety checks on chickens delivered from around the nation for slaughter before they are sold in markets around the city, the office said.
The World Organization for Animal Health confirmed on July 24 that Taiwan was clear of the H5N6 virus — which can be transmitted from birds to humans — after the nation reported its first confirmed case of the virus in February.
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during
RSS