The Council of Agriculture on Wednesday said that it would not buy avian flu vaccines from overseas, but manufacture them domestically, amid criticism that it has squandered a lot of money buying imported vaccines, only to end up destroying them after they reached their expiration date.
“We’re not planning to buy them this year,” Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) told a legislative committee during a report on avian flu outbreaks and quarantine measures in the nation.
New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) cited statistics showing that the council spent NT$39.48 million (US$1.29 million at the current exchange rate) on avian flu vaccines from 2012 to 2015, but destroyed them without putting them to use.
“What a waste of NT$40 million in four years,” Hsu said.
Lin said the vaccines were bought to guard against possible outbreaks of avian flu, a practice that other nations also follow.
Council Vice Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城) said that if a farm is infected with avian flu, the birds in neighboring farms could be vaccinated, adding that it is normal to reserve vaccines.
He added that the council had decided to stop buying vaccines overseas, but would commission the Animal Health Research Institute to produce vaccines for “emergency and preventive” use.
Manufacturing vaccines locally is not necessarily cheaper, but the council decided to stop importing them because the previous vaccines it bought from Mexico target a different strain of the H5N2 virus.
Vaccines for emergency use are expected to be produced within six months, Huang said.
As of Tuesday, 88 poultry farms were confirmed to have been affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, and 739,757 birds had been culled, the council said.
Of the 88, 12 farms — in Hualien, Tainan, Yunlin and Chiayi counties — were hit by the more virulent H5N6 strain, which can be transmitted to humans, it said.
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