A chicken slaughtered at a poultry wholesale market in Taipei was confirmed to be infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N2, but other chickens in the same batch were free of the disease, Council of Agriculture officials said yesterday.
A veterinarian at the market’s slaughterhouse on Saturday last week informed the city government that a slaughtered chicken might be infected with bird flu and the council kept the batch of 39 chickens it was part of for further inspection.
The council’s Animal Health Research Institute on Monday confirmed that only one chicken was infected with H5N2, but the whole batch was destroyed, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Shih Tai-hua (施泰華) said.
The chickens were the last batch delivered from a poultry farm in Pingtung County’s Yanpu Township (鹽埔), Shih said, adding that no other infection was detected in the farm’s previous batches.
Both the market and the farm were disinfected, he said, adding that the council would put 15 sentinel chickens at the farm, which can resume business if no further infections are found in the next three months.
Despite the warm weather, sporadic cases of bird flu have been reported in central and southern regions, with most infected birds being native chickens, he said.
As of 6pm yesterday, 1,475,628 birds infected with avian flu viruses have been destroyed at 153 farms since the beginning of this year, bureau data showed.
In the first half of the year, poultry farms were plagued by the H5N6 virus, which an infect people.
The last H5N6 case was reported on March 6 in Hualien County’s Yuli Township (玉里), the council said, adding recent bird flu cases were related to the H5N2 and H5N8 strains.
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