Samples taken from the droppings of migratory birds in Greater Kaohsiung’s Cieding Wetland (茄萣濕地) tested positive for the H7N9 avian influenza subtype, while a highly pathogenic H5 subtype was detected in the carcass of a thrush in Pingtung County’s Changjhih Township (長治), the Council of Agriculture said yesterday.
Unlike the H7N9 subtype found in China, the newfound H7N9 is not very pathogenic and will not transmit to humans, it said.
Animal Health Research Institute director-general Tsai Hsiang-jung (蔡向榮) said the genome sequencing conducted on the locally found H7N9 sample did not exhibit a characteristic defect identified in the one found in China, which is known to have a 30 percent fatality rate in humans.
There have not been any incidents of the locally found H7N9 strain affecting humans, he added.
Tsai said the H5 hemagglutinin taken from the dead thrush has been proven to be highly pathogenic and is the first one in the recent series to be confirmed from a migratory bird.
With reference to doubts from the media and academic circles over the validity of the council’s claim that the current avian flu outbreaks were caused by migratory birds, Tsai said that his institute does not have any proof to back that claim, but is searching for more cases of migratory birds infected with the new strains — H5N2, H5N3 and H5N8.
In response to speculation that the current outbreaks could have stemmed from poultry farms administering substandard vaccines to their birds, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Director-General Chang Su-san (張淑賢) said doing so is strictly prohibited by law and risks exacerbating the outbreaks.
Those who use unregistered drugs on their animals can be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 (US$1,892 and US$9,465), while those who import or sell the medicines face a maximum jail term of seven years and a NT$4.5 million fine, Chang said.
Informants who provide information regarding the crime will receive a reward of NT$200,000, she added.
Due to the severity of the outbreaks, Chang said that the Executive Yuan and the council have decided to ease compensation rules for farmers.
“All farmers who report symptoms, no matter the time of the report, will receive full compensation if samples test positive for the new subtypes. In the past, full compensation was only given to informants who reported symptoms before the subtypes were identified.”
Proprietors of facilities that are culled after the H5 subtype is detected will also be compensated in full, should subsequent genome sequencing find the strain to be not very pathogenic, she said.
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
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
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