The Kinmen County Government yesterday suspended the transportation of pork between Lieyu Township (烈嶼) and other areas of the outlying county after a dead pig found in the township tested positive for African swine fever.
It was the third infected pig carcass found in the nation’s outlying islands, following dead hogs found in Kinmen’s Jinsha Township (金沙) in December last year and in Lienchiang County’s Jyuguang Township (莒光) in January, Council of Agriculture data showed.
The carcasses might have been carried from China by sea currents, the council said, adding that no infections of the highly contagious disease have been reported on Taiwan proper.
Photo: CNA
The council on Thursday confirmed that the third carcass, which was found on Lieyu’s southwest coast on Tuesday, was infected with the same strain of the virus that is spreading in China.
There is no hog farm within a 3km radius of the site where the carcass was found, the council said, adding that it is possible that it arrived from China, as the site is only 6km from Xiamen.
The dead pig was found among marine garbage, but there were no other carcasses, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine division head Hsu Jung-pin (徐榮彬) said.
The county government suspended the transportation of pork between Lieyu, also known as Little Kinmen, and Greater Kinmen (大金門), where there is an airport with flights to Taiwan proper, he said.
The transportation of pork between Greater Kinmen and Taiwan proper would not be affected, he added.
Officials yesterday collected 137 samples from Leiyu’s eight pig farms, which keep a total of 770 pigs, Kinmen Animal and Plant Disease Control Center Director Chuang Chien-kung (莊謙恭) said, adding that the samples would be sent to the council’s Animal Health Research Institute for testing.
The ban on transportation of pork from the township would be lifted immediately if the samples test negative for the disease, Chuang added.
Additional reporting by CNA
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS