Owners of vehicles transporting pigs to slaughterhouses might face fines from next month if they have not installed GPS trackers, a measure aimed at mitigating the potential effects of African swine fever in the event that it enters Taiwan, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday.
Hog transportation from farms to slaughterhouses and other places is one of the biggest channels for virus transmission, which is why China’s first outbreak in Liaoning Province on Aug. 3 last year spread to Henan Province in two weeks, COA Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城) told a news conference in Taipei.
Since the council in March amended regulations to require GPS tracking, the system had been installed in 1,425 vehicles as of Sunday, while 565 remain without the equipment, he said.
Photo: CNA
From next month, owners of vehicles transporting live pigs would face fines from NT$3,000 to NT$15,000 under the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) if the vehicles have not had a GPS tracker installed or it is not turned on while in use, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine meat inspection division director Rocky Lin (林岩) said.
Owners of vehicles transporting pork or slaughtered pig parts would face fines from NT$30,000 to NT$150,000 under the Animal Industry Act (畜牧法) for the same infractions, he said.
The council had put off enforcing the penalties from last month to next month.
Before the requirement takes effect, the council would continue to subsidize the installation of GPS trackers, as well as their mobile Internet fees for two years, Lin said.
The council’s Information Management Center has developed a platform to integrate data gathered from GPS trackers, which bureau and local government officials have started using on their cellphones to monitor vehicles nationwide, he said.
If the disease enters Taiwan, the council would review the historical travel data of hog transportation vehicles to try to minimize the scope of affected areas, he added.
Six Asian countries — China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and North Korea — have reported African swine fever outbreaks, in addition to 32 African countries and 17 European nations, council data showed.
While the spread of the disease has shown no sign of slowing in Asia, quarantine measures at borders, information exchange, social communication and quarantine drills are key to stopping it from spreading further, said bureau Deputy Director-General Tu Wen-jane (杜文珍), who represented Taiwan at the World Organization for Animal Health’s annual conference in Paris in late May.
The organization plans to host another meeting in Asia on mitigating the spread of the disease, but its schedule and venue have yet to be confirmed, Tu added.
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