The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has approved Taiwan’s application to be listed among the “member countries and zones recognized as free from foot-and-mouth disease [FMD] with vaccination,” an official said on Sunday.
The listing was confirmed by OIE Director-General Monique Eloit at a news conference.
Taiwan would receive an official certificate of its FMD status from the OIE on Thursday, said Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Shih Tai-hua (施泰華), who is attending the 85th general session of the World Assembly of Delegates of the OIE in Paris.
The listing will apply to Taiwan proper, as well as Penghu and Matsu counties, Shih said, adding that the nation’s efforts on FMD prevention and control have produced results.
FMD vaccinations will stop on Taiwan proper next year and in the two counties in 2019, he said.
Taiwan would then apply to be listed among the “member countries and zones recognized as free from FMD without vaccination,” he said.
Kinmen remains affected with FMD and Council of Agriculture (COA) Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) in Taipei said that the government aims to eradicate the disease in the county, as well as in other parts of the nation, to improve the competitiveness of Taiwanese pork.
Meanwhile, Chang Chia-yi (張家宜), an associate research fellow at the Animal Health Research Institute, has been recognized by the OIE as an expert in porcine epidemic diseases, Shih said.
The recognition has been conferred upon experts from only five other nations — Japan, Germany, the UK, Poland and Canada — he said.
The OIE meeting, which began on Sunday and runs through Friday, brings together representatives from 180 OIE members and observers from international organizations that have signed an official agreement with the OIE, as well as other international and regional organizations and invited guests.
Taiwan’s delegation is to hold bilateral talks with those from Brazil, Canada, France, Lithuania, Australia, Singapore and Estonia on the sidelines of the meeting, focusing mainly on trade, Shih said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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