UK scientists were conducting tests on Saturday to determine whether a parrot infected with avian flu had the lethal strain that has killed more than 60 people around the world.
The Department for Food and Rural Affairs could not immediately say when the results of the tests would be known.
The department announced on Friday that a parrot from the South American country of Suriname had died of the disease while in quarantine. It was Britain's first confirmed case of bird flu since 1992.
The government's chief veterinarian, Debby Reynolds, said the bird had an H5 strain of the virus. But it was not clear whether it had the H5N1 strain which has devastated poultry stocks across Asia and killed 60 people in the past two years, mostly poultry farmers directly infected by birds.
Reynolds said the parrot, which died earlier this week, had arrived in the UK last month as part of a mixed consignment of birds from Suriname being held in a biosecure quarantine unit alongside a consignment of birds from Taiwan.
The department said it was in contact with officials in both Suriname and Taiwan as it sought to determine where the bird had contracted the virus.
Because the bird died in quarantine, the discovery of bird flu does not affect the UK's disease-free status.
The government said the other birds held in the unit had been culled and staff who had come into contact with the birds were given antiviral medication.
Meanwhile, Croatia confirmed the country's first cases of bird flu on Friday with six swans testing positive for the H5 type, the Agriculture Ministry said.
Medical experts detected the H5 type in six swans during testing late on Friday. Twelve swans were found dead by rangers at a pond and fishing farm a day earlier near the Zdenci national park, some 150km east of the capital Zagreb. It was unclear whether the other six swans were also tested.
The Minister of Agriculture Petar Cobankovic said that several kilometers from the scene that "there is no room for panic." A wide swath around where the wild swans had died was immediately placed under quarantine and cordoned off for disinfection.
Cobankovic said that other measures prescribed by the EU were also put in place, such as bans on poultry distribution and closure of free-range bird sites.
Most of the domestic poultry in the sparsely inhabited area will be slaughtered as a precaution to prevent the possible spread of the disease.
Samples from the contaminated birds were sent to a laboratory in Weybridge, England, to confirm whether the birds had the deadly H5N1 strain. The strain has recently been found in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.
"The swans were acting strangely, flying in circles," said Zvonko Zagar, a park ranger, who has watched wildlife in the area for about 30 years. "I was afraid the virus would come as I have fowls at home that I will now have to kill."
About 1,500 migratory swans arrived in eastern Croatia a few days ago. Ornithologists said that the flock flew in from the north, most likely from the UK, Ukraine or Russia.
The EU's executive office was preparing a ban on all poultry imports from Croatia.
German animal-health experts warned yesterday that an improved vaccine to protect poultry against bird flu is nowhere near the production stage, despite the westward spread of the H5N1 virus.
The vaccine, under development on the Baltic Sea island of Riems where Germany studies the deadliest animal diseases, solves the main problem with existing vaccines by including a genetic marker to distinguish the vaccine virus from the virus in the wild.
Using existing vaccines, it is almost impossible to map the spread of the disease, since a vaccinated bird and an infected bird give the same test result. Healthy, vaccinated poultry have to be slaughtered and burned too if the H5 virus reaches a farm.
Thomas Mettenleiter, head of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute on Riems, said the prototype vaccine, which has a marking system built into it, had been successfully tested, but faces a long path to approval and manufacture.
The institute is to meet with vaccine makers next week to review whether more research is needed.
also see story:
Human-to-human transmission ruled out in Thai flu death
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS