While there were no new reports yesterday of a spread in the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak among cattle in central Taiwan, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said it is bracing for the appearance of the virus in other animal species.
COA officials said yesterday that an analysis of samples taken from affected cattle indicates the virus is of the O-Kinmen strain and therefore easily transmitted among cloven-hoofed animals including cattle, swine, goats, and deer. The finding prompted officials to warn farmers yesterday to be wary of a further outbreak among the hog population.
At a press conference held by the council yesterday, scientists from the Pig Research Institute of Taiwan (PRIT, 台灣養豬科學研究所) said that the virus causing the FMD outbreak in Liuchiao township (六腳村), Chiayi County, has been identified as O-Kinmen type virus, the same type found in infected diary cattle discovered several days ago in Yunlin County.
The O-Kinmen type virus was first found last year in Taiwan, when cattle on several farms in both Kinmen and in Changhua County were infected by FMD.
"The scientific evidence shows that the source of the virus causing the FMD outbreak this year appears to be the same as that which caused the FMD outbreak in southern Taiwan last year," said deputy director of the institute, Yang Ping-cheng (楊平政).
Yang suggested that the best method to tackle the spread of FMD should be to block any possible channels of further transmission.
"We have to prevent the possible outbreak in hogs, because the concentration of the virus in fluids drained from hog carcasses is 3,000 times that seen in cattle fluids, which would accelerate the outbreak of the disease," Yang said.
However, COA officials said that the source of the virus causing the outbreak was still uncertain.
"We are tracing possible sources although no further FMD outbreak was reported," Watson Sung (宋華聰), deputy head of the COA's animal and plant health inspection and quarantine bureau (動植物防檢局).
COA officials said that source could be figured out by comparing the virus with others currently causing FMD outbreaks in other countries, such as China.
However, they said that it was uncertain if virus samples could be obtained from China.
COA officials said yesterday that local disease prevention staff had engaged in wholesale vaccination work in all ranches in Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan counties.
Where government-supplied chemicals for sterilization are unavailable, some desperate cattle farmers in Yunlin and Chiayi counties are employing their own methods, such as constructing temporary cattle-dips containing water and their own chemicals.
"I believe that my cattle will be immune from the disease as long as they are dipped," said one farmer in an interview.
COA officials said that local workshops will be set up to deliver government information to farmers.
"In addition, we will undertake island-wide blood-tests on all registered cattle (黃牛) to prevent them from becoming FMD virus disseminators," Sung said.
More than 250 cattle have been slaughtered in the past three days in an effort to contain the outbreak, now limited to Yunlin and Chiayi counties, while farmers have been asked to vaccinate the remaining 160,000 cattle around Taiwan.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most