Taiwan will soon launch a large-scale program to exterminate rats and mice in a bid to curb agricultural losses and a further spread of the deadly Hantavirus, officials said yesterday.
"The campaign will be carried out from March 30 to April 5," an official at the government's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said. "Such activities are carried out once every year, but this year it's earlier because of the hantavirus scare."
The death in January of a Hualien couple infected by the Hantavirus, which is contracted through inhaling dust contaminated with rodent feces, has led to a nation-wide health scare and drawn attention to the dangers posed by the rodents.
However, only one of seven other people who were suspected to have contracted the disease earlier is confirmed as having been infected with the virus.
The Hantavirus was first isolated in Korea in 1976, but cases have also been recorded in North and South America, as well as Europe and Asia.
Last year's rat extermination program had a success rate of around 71 percent, with 7.9 million of the rodents destroyed during the week-long campaign, and reduced agricultural losses by up to NT$790 million.
Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan's Council of Agriculture reported yesterday that more than 2,000 smuggled animals, including popular pet rodents and turtles, were intercepted last year by customs officers.
According to statistics released by the council, the 2,432 smuggled animals included common pet rodents such as chipmunks, Syrian hamsters and draft Russian hamsters. Also smuggled were 391 tons of animals and animal products, the report showed.
Last July 6 customs officers arrested two tourists who tried to smuggle a large number of animals into Taiwan. The animals included raccoons, prairie dogs, Syrian hamsters, winter-white draft Russian hamsters, squirrels and two endangered giant tortoises.
Besides small pet rodents, birds like white Java sparrows and love birds are also favored by smugglers, said the Council of Agriculture.
The Bureau of Animal and Plant Disease Prevention and Examination last year seized 1,090 smuggled birds, including 16 endangered magpies.
The Council of Agriculture warned that animals smuggled from China and other countries neighboring Taiwan are usually the transmitters of fatal diseases, such as rinderpest, rabies, foot and mouth disease, that exist in those countries.
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