The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday announced that an outbreak of the H5N6 strain of avian flu is over, while the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) also declared the nation’s farms free of the highly pathogenic virus.
The last H5N6 case was reported on March 6 at a poultry farm in Hualien County’s Yuli Township (玉里), Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Shih Tai-hua (施泰華) said, adding that movement controls on the farm were lifted on April 10.
On the OIE Web site, follow-up report No. 4 on the nation’s H5N6 outbreak concludes that: “The outbreak is resolved. No more reports will be submitted.”
The report was filed under “Chinese Taipei.”
The nation’s first H5N6 case was reported in early February.
In the middle of that month, the Cabinet established a “level one” Central Emergency Operation Center.
During the outbreak, about 42,000 birds were culled, with the epidemic contained to 12 farms in Tainan and Yunlin, Chiayi and Hualien counties, the agency said.
Compared with a severe outbreak of H5N6 in South Korea last year, which saw nearly 40 million birds culled in the first three months and a severe shortage of eggs, the virus was successfully contained in Taiwan, the bureau said.
However, not all strains of bird flu have been eradicated, the bureau said, adding that it is now focusing its efforts on fighting the H5N2 and H5N8 subtypes.
In related news, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said that enterovirus infection outbreaks have peaked, with more than 11,000 cases reported last week, adding that people should practice good hygiene and wash their hands regularly, especially before touching young children.
The centers received 11,592 reports of enterovirus infections last week, exceeding the normal seasonal threshold of 11,000 cases per week.
CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said there have been six incidents of serious enterovirus complications this year, including three infected with coxsackievirus A6, two with echovirus 5, and one with coxsackievirus A2.
CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said that a baby less than one year old living in the north was hospitalized in the middle of this month with symptoms of herpangina — small blisters in the mouth and throat — febrile seizures and myoclonic convulsions.
“Enteroviruses are highly contagious and can easily spread between siblings, so we urge people to raise awareness and practice hand hygiene,” Liu said. “To reduce the risk of infection, parents should change their clothes and wash their hands thoroughly with soap when they return home and before approaching their children.”
Peak transmission season arrived later than usual this year, but the number of outbreaks might spike in September when school begins, so the public should remain vigilant and take preventive measures, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) 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:
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