The Council of Agriculture (COA) imposed a temporary ban on apple imports from France yesterday after discovering an infestation of codling moth larvae in a recent shipment.
It was the first time codling moths had been discovered in apple imports from Europe, the council said.
The codling moth is a serious pest that affects apple, pear, quince and walnut-producing regions in Europe, Asia and North America.
Codling moths could devastate the nation's apple and pear crops if they were introduced here, council officials said.
According to officials at the council's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, the larvae were found on Tuesday in a shipment containing 1,029 crates of Gala apples.
The council said the find was identified as codling moth larvae by visual inspection and DNA analysis.
Quarantine regulations require the bureau to destroy the shipment or return it to the country of origin.
The bureau had requested the French authorities suspend apple exports to Taiwan until they identify the cause of the infestation and take measures to remedy the situation, officials said.
As for shipments already en route, the bureau would conduct a comprehensive inspection after their arrival, the officials said.
Last year Taiwan imported 586 tonnes of apples from France, accounting for only 0.5 percent of apple imports, the council said.
Taiwanese consume around 115,000 tonnes of apples annually, relying on imports to meet more than 90 percent of demand.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,