Additional consultations with local and foreign experts will be held before any animal testing is conducted to research the rabies outbreak, the Central Epidemic Command Center said yesterday.
Outraged by the announcement that the Animal Health Research Institute is to conduct experiments on 14 beagles that involve infecting the dogs with a strain of the virus, animal protection groups and veterinarians have been voicing their opposition to the tests, which they say would not yield any useful information.
Faced with accusations that it is sanctioning the needless violation of animal rights, the authorities seem to have backed down, saying that the experiment will not be undertaken until further discussions on their necessity are completed.
When asked when the experiment would be done, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine official Liao Mei-hui (廖美慧) said that no date had been set.
“We just want to find out if the rabies strain that has infected Formosan ferret-badgers recently also affects dogs so that more effective, targeted preventive measures can be devised,” Liao said.
No date has been set either for a final decision on whether to conduct the experiment, Liao added.
Liao said that since the proposal caused such a public uproar, “we are going to go over the plan again with the specialists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” who arrived in Taipei earlier this month.
If the experiment is conducted, the “three R’s” of animal testing procedures — reduction, refinement and replacement — will be rigorously followed to ensure the procedure is thoroughly deliberated, the center said.
According to the center, two more ferret-badgers were confirmed to be infected with rabies over the weekend, bringing the total number of known infections to 90, all but one of which were ferret-badgers.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
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