About 35,000 chickens on a farm in Hsinkang Township, Chiayi County, where a low virulence bird flu was found last Thursday, were all slaughtered yesterday and buried near the farm, the Council of Agriculture said.
The site will be monitored and quarantined for at least three years.
Officials from the council's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said yesterday that the suspension of drinking water to chickens on the farm began last Friday. Epidemic prevention workers soon offered chickens chloral hydrate, a tranquilizer.
The chemical, however, put only 30 percent of the chickens into a coma. Workers then put dry ice into bags containing the chickens. The chickens then quickly died of suffocation.
Officials said that all the dead chickens were thrown into a 5m deep ditch covered with a waterproof layer, on which lime was sprayed.
"Then the ditch will be covered with soil, which is at least 1m thick, and no activities will be allowed to be carried out there within the next three years," said the bureau's Deputy Director General Yeh Ying (
The farm will be disinfected at least four times in the next two months.
All bird farms, meanwhile, within a 3km radius of the site will be closely monitored for six months for signs of bird flu.
Yeh said slaughtering chickens on the farm, which was affected by the H5N2 virus, a less dangerous strain than the H5N1 currently wreaking havoc in South Korea, Japan and Vietnam, means Taiwan is alert to the dangers of bird flu.
Yeh said consumers should remain calm because the virus cannot be transferred from chickens to human. In the US and some European countries, chickens infected by weak strains of the bird flu virus are allowed to be sold on the market.
Taiwan took similar measures in 1998, when real-time monitoring measures for bird farms came into force. Following the deaths of six people in Hong Kong caused by the H5N1 in 1997 and 1998, Taiwan became cautious to the appearance of weak strains and slaughtered all chickens raised on affected farms.
Last Thursday, another chicken farm in Fangyuan Township, Changhua County, was confirmed affected by the H5N2 virus. Almost 20,000 chickens were immediately slaughtered.
Yeh said yesterday that the cause of the infection at the two sites remained uncertain but that migratory birds may be partly responsible.
Yeh stressed that Taiwan remains a place where highly pathogenic avian influenza has never occurred and all residents should avoid purchasing agricultural products lacking certificates of origin.
"To keep Taiwan from being affected by the outbreak of bird flu in neighboring countries, the smuggling of agricultural products should be eradicated," Yeh said.
Today, a government exercise in epidemic control measures will be conducted in Pingtung.
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