The avian influenza outbreaks that have wreaked havoc on the poultry industry since December has spread to Taitung County. Sampling results issued by the Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday on a broiler chicken farm in the county tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5 subtype.
The newly confirmed case came after a Hsinchu-based chicken farm was on Sunday found to have been hit by the new H5N2 subtype, resulting in the culling of about 72,400 chickens.
The latest inspection results delivered yet another blow to the council’s efforts to prevent a further widening of the viruses’ spread among chickens, the nation’s largest source of poultry meat.
Although samples collected from the site tested negative during preliminary sampling, further testing tied them to the highly pathogenic subtype, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Director-General Chang Su-san (張淑賢) said.
The Taitung facility had about 200 chickens, 130 of which had died since avian flu-like symptoms were reported, with the rest exterminated yesterday, she added.
With a series of cold fronts having swept the country in recent weeks, which often drove down temperatures well below 18°C — the optimal temperature for raising chickens — to between 11°C and 13°C, Chang highlighted the danger of poultry contracting bird flu from cold stress and urged poultry farmers to improve insulation and ventilation at their facilities.
Taitung Animal and Plant Health Inspection Institute Director-
General Chen Chih-feng (陳志峰) said the H5N2 strain found its way into the east despite a “joint disease prevention front” that had been formed between Taitung, Yilan and Hualien counties, which enforced measures such as banning vehicles carrying chicken manure and live fowl from entering these regions via the Suhua Highway and the South-link Highway.
“From now on, poultry being transported from Taitung to Taipei will have to take a southerly detour to Pingtung County to make sure that Hualien and Yilan remain unaffected,” Chen said.
Asked if the strains have crossed the Central Mountain Range to eastern Taiwan, Animal Health Research Institute Director-General Tsai Hsiang-jung (蔡向榮) said a black crowned night heron fledgling in Greater Tainan had been found carrying the new H5N2 strain, and that resident or migratory birds could be responsible for the spread of H5N2 to Taitung.
As of yesterday, a total of 75 chicken farms in Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties, as well as Greater Tainan, had been confirmed to have been hit by the highly pathogenic H5 strain, of which H5N2 were detected at 24 facilities, while the total number of birds exterminated rose to about 2.14 million, council statistics showed.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS