Forty cattle were culled at three dairy farms in Chiayi after they were confirmed to have been infected with bovine tuberculosis, the Council of Agriculture said on Thursday.
The council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said it conducted routine checks on March 30 at the farms and found that the animals had been infected.
The infected animals were traced to a farm in Yunlin, it added.
Photo courtesy of the Chiayi County Livestock Disease Control Center
The Yunlin farm in late January sold 265 dairy cattle to the three farms, as well as to two farms in Tainan and Pingtung and a slaughterhouse in Tainan, it said.
Sixteen cows sold to the slaughterhouse tested negative for bovine tuberculosis, but 10 cattle at the Tainan farm and three at the Pingtung farm tested positive and were culled, it added.
Fifty-three of the cattle sold by the Yunlin farm have been culled, while the healthy animals have been placed under quarantine, the bureau said.
Bovine tuberculosis is a communicable disease and has been present in Taiwan for a long time, council Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城) said.
It can be transmitted to humans, but the bacteria dies at temperatures of 70?C to 80?C, Huang said, adding that although the bacteria can survive in fresh milk, such products are sterilized at high temperatures.
As long as people refrain from drinking raw milk, the risk of infection is minimal, Huang said, adding that there has never been a case of transmission to humans in Taiwan.
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