An outbreak of H5N6 avian influenza has been curbed following more than two months of efforts to contain the epidemic, Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said yesterday alongside Council of Agriculture officials.
The Executive Yuan on Feb. 12 upgraded the Central Emergency Operation Center to a Level 1 facility, with the premier serving as the center’s commander.
Now that the epidemic is under control, Lin said that the center was being closed.
“Since the last infection in Hualien on March 6, no other cases have been reported,” Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) said in a report on the government’s reaction to the epidemic.
Lin Tsung-hsien said 41,602 birds infected with H5N6 had been culled during the first four months of this year, while more than 1.2 million birds infected with other H5 flu subtypes had also been culled.
In comparison, in the previous H5 subtype avian flu (H5N2, H5N8, H5N3) epidemic in 2015, more than 4.8 million birds were culled, he said.
He said crucial strategies won “the war against the epidemic.”
After encouraging farmers to report H5N6 cases, the government increased the reimbursement fee from 60 to 80 percent, effective between Feb. 5 and May 31, Lin Tsung-hsien said.
Then a seven-day ban on the transportation and slaughter of poultry from Feb. 17 to Feb. 24 prevented the further spread of H5N6, he said.
Speaking about the “difficult decision,” he said it was enacted amid great public doubt and pressure.
To reduce its impact on the domestic market, the ban did not include chickens raised indoors or disinfected eggs, Lin Tsung-hsien said.
After the ban was lifted, farmers had to submit an examination report before sending birds to slaughterhouses, which prevented those that appeared healthy, but were actually infected from escaping quarantine, he said.
“It was a silent war, but we have passed the test,” Lin Chuan said, expressing his thanks to Council of Agriculture officials.
The premier presented awards to those who had made crucial contributions, including Chang Chi-wei (張智偉), a member of West Bird Society of Taipei who reported the first case of an infected duckling in Hualien.
Asked whether H5N6 had been eradicated in Taiwan, Lin Tsung-hsien said that no expert can give a 100 percent assurance.
Avian flu is usually dormant in the summer, but people still need to be cautious in the fall when the weather turns colder, he said.
The council is encouraging more poultry farmers to adopt indoor facilities to reduce the risk of avian flu, he said.
The council plans to cooperate with the Ministry of Health and Welfare to establish a Center of Avian Flu Prevention and Control, which would coordinate measures in the case of a future outbreak, he said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS