In a bid to prevent an outbreak of bird flu in local chickens, Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday announced that the government will set aside NT$1 billion (US$30 million) to help local poultry farms set up protective fences.
The remarks came yesterday while the premier was paying a visit to a chicken farm in Yangmei (
"As long as the entire chicken farm is protected by nets and is isolated from potential contact with wild migratory birds, the bird flu can be kept out," Hsieh said.
PHOTO: CHEN MEI-NIEN, TAIPEI TIMES
In other Asian and European countries that have suffered outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 bird flu, experts believe that local birds caught the bug through contact with infected migratory birds.
Screened in
With the Cabinet's help, the Yangmei chicken farm had huge nets instal-led to cover the birds' living quarters so that chickens will not be exposed to potential infection.
The nets, which look like huge screen doors, are also constructed to allow easy access to farmers who need to tend to their fowl.
"The government will help the rest of the nation's farms put up nets like this," the premier said.
He said the preventive measure could help avert crippling losses to the nation's poultry industry.
"We would have to kill all the chickens if one of them gets infected. If that happens, it would be a great loss for farmers and the country," Hsieh said.
When asked how the government will deal with migratory birds, the premier was unclear.
"Our policy is that people's health is the top priority," Hsieh said. "Theoretically, we should kill foreign birds. But we also hope that we do not have to sacrifice all of them."
The premier urged the public not to panic about the bird flu because "everything is under control," he said.
"Some wire stories misreported that Taiwan is an infected country. The Government Information Office has asked them to correct those reports," Hsieh said. "Our chickens are still good to eat. Taiwan is not one of those infected countries. There is no need to panic at all."
The nation reported its first case of the H5N1 virus last week, but only in birds being smuggled into Taiwan from China. The birds were seized from a boat entering Tai-chung Harbor and destroyed. No other cases have been found.
Noting Japan is still purchasing and importing chickens from Taiwan, Hsieh said this proved that the nation's chickens are healthy.
Sales down
Fears of an avian flu pandemic have nonetheless dealt a blow to chicken sales, with retailers yesterday reporting a 20 percent drop this month due to weaker consumer confidence in the poultry.
Hsieh Ching-biau (謝清標), deputy director of the Taipei Markets Administration Office, said chicken sales in the capital's 60 traditional markets, 11 wholesale markets, 30 public supermarkets and some street vendors have declined 10 percent recently although wholesale prices are steady.
"We have dispatched more personnel to wet markets, where chickens are slaughtered on the spot, to educate them about the importance of daily disinfections. Chickens sent into wholesale markets have also been examined by veterinarians," he said.
Carrefour Taiwan, the nation's largest hypermarket chain, saw chicken sales in its 34 outlets this month slide 20 to 30 percent year-on-year and prices have dipped to new lows. Sales of pork and beef rose 15 percent, reflecting consumers' cautious attitude toward poultry, said Dream Lin (
Travel precautions
In other developments, the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday announced that starting today, all Taiwanese returning from China, Hong Kong and Macau are required to check their body temperatures twice a day for 10 days.
"Taiwan is currently an H5N1-free zone, and we hope that passengers will cooperate with the effort to keep the virus out of the country," said Li Jih-heng (
Additional reporting by Jenny Chou
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching