Domestic poultry products deserve consumers' confidence because Taiwan remains a place where highly pathogenic avian influenza has never occurred, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday.
Council Chairman Lee Ching-lung (
Lee said that the H5N2, a weaker strain of avian flu which was recently found on five chicken farms and a duck farm, poses no danger to humans because it cannot survive in the meat of well-cooked ducks and chickens.
PHOTO: CNA
"The avian flu virus dies at high temperatures. Consumers should be confident of eating poultry products and eggs in Taiwan," Lee said.
Agriculture officials reiterated that H5N2 virus would be destroyed at temperatures higher than 80?C and that consumers should not react by boycotting poultry products or eggs.
Lee said that strict infection-prevention measures would be continued to keep the nation from being affected by the more deadly flu strain hurting 10 Asian countries and some European coun-tries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Lee said, however, that the possibility of being affected by the epidemic could not be ruled out because Taiwan was surrounded by countries struggling to deal with the disease.
"Taiwan is threatened by both the passage of migratory birds and smuggling of bird-related pro-ducts," Lee said.
The council is considering providing financial aid to bird farmers to help them erect nets to prevent migratory birds from coming into contact with their flocks.
Taiwan is a wintering site for migratory birds which depart from Siberia and pass over South Korea or Japan on their way here.
Meanwhile, with the strain of the avian flu that was found in red-faced ducks apparently smuggled into Kinmen County in December confirmed to be identical to the strain in Vietnam that jumped from chickens into humans and caused several deaths, health officials in Matzu yesterday urged residents to purchase frozen poultry meat products shipped from Taiwan instead of products that lack a certificate of origin.
In light of the increasing severity of avian flu outbreaks in surrounding nations, the Center for Disease Control yesterday reiterated the importance of vaccine production in Taiwan and revealed plans to introduce a broader inoculation program that would cover children's vaccinations.
"Taiwan does not have any World Health Organization [WHO]-approved vaccine production labs," said center Director Su Ih-jen (
"With regard to developing and obtaining vaccines against avian flu, Taiwan can't make its own vaccines and would have to purchase them from the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline," Su said.
"We plan to order more human flu vaccine in March, earlier than in previous years," he said.
The center's officials will meet today to discuss the details of a new vaccination policy that will enable children under the age of 10 to be vaccinated for free.
"In the past, we only provided the elderly with vaccinations because the flu is more fatal to the elderly," Su said.
"Preventing the disease from spreading to children, however, will decrease the chances of the elderly contracting avian flu," he said.
Su said Taiwan has 1.2 million doses of the anti-viral vaccine, Tamiflu, enough to last until 2007.
Many countries have depleted their vaccine stock.
The center's deputy director, Shih Wen-yi (
After assessing the bird flu situation in Thailand and Vietnam during a recent visit to those countries, Su said that the possibility of cross infection of human and avian flu is the biggest threat.
"Even though Thailand has found cases of the H1N1 virus strain, it is not currently at the peak of human influenza activity. Like Vietnam and Guangdong," Su said.
"Taiwan is undergoing its main influenza season, thereby increasing the chances of cross infection and virus mutation," he said.
He warned that another small increase in flu activity was usually seen every March in this country.
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