Preventing the spread of the highly pathogenic H5N2 is of critical importance to the government, and relevant agencies at the central and local levels must work together to fight the disease, ROC Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji said March 5.
“It is especially important for poultry farmers to strengthen disease prevention measures and actively report new cases they encounter,” he said.
Chen’s remarks came after poultry in central and southern Taiwan’s Changhua County and Tainan City were confirmed to be infected with the virus, resulting in the immediate culling of 58,000 hens and chickens.
According to Huang Kwo-ching, deputy director-general of the COA’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, the government has taken several additional measures to stop the disease from spreading.
These include actively monitoring poultry farms on a regular basis; strengthening inspection of the animals before and after slaughter; and encouraging poultry famers to set up sturdier nets, to prevent migratory birds from entering and infecting chicken coops.
According to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), there are two types of avian flu, low pathogenic and highly pathogenic, with the former resulting in “little or no clinical signs in birds,” and the latter causing “severe clinical signs and / or high mortality in birds.”
In February, South Africa also reported several cases of the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian flu to the OIE. (HZW)
Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw