The Council of Agriculture yesterday denied that a batch of Taiwanese birds passed on avian flu to a parrot shipped to the UK when they were quarantined in British customs.
"The birds from Taiwan were held in the same room, but not in the same cage, as the Suriname parrot," said Watson Sung (
"So the death of the Suriname parrot has nothing to do with the Taiwanese birds," he said.
Song was responding to news reports that British health officials suspected a Suriname parrot that died and tested positive for avian flu may have been infected by a batch of Taiwanese birds when they were kept in the same cage during quarantine.
It was Britain's first confirmed case of bird flu since 1992. Tests were underway at a British lab to determine whether the parrot had the deadly H5N1 strain.
import ban
The British government called on the EU to ban live wild bird imports from anywhere in the world after the parrot died.
Junior Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said he expected support from European partners and that the ban could be imposed within days.
"This is actually something we've been considering for some time, before the death of the parrot. It just so happens that the formal request has been made now," Bradshaw told BBC Radio late on Saturday.
The parrot was among a batch of 148 parrots imported from Suriname last month. They were quarantined together with a batch of 216 Taiwanese birds.
After the parrot died, British health workers destroyed all the Suriname and Taiwanese birds.
Taiwan detected the weaker strain of bird flu, H5N2, last year. But on Oct. 15, Taiwan detected H5N1, the strain that can pass from birds to humans, in samples taken from 1,600 Chinese birds smuggled by a Panamanian freighter into Taichung Harbor.
Officials destroyed the birds and detected H5N1 a few days later.
Bracing for a bird flu pandemic, the National Health Research Institute has succeeded in developing anti-viral flu drug Tamiflu and two Taiwanese pharmaceutical companies have begun trial production.
According to Chinese-language newspapers, Yung Zip Chemical Industry Co and Scino Pharm have begun trial production of Tamiflu.
The Department of Health said the nation will begin mass production if bird flu breaks out in Taiwan.
The government has asked the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche to release the patent on Tamiflu, but said it will go ahead with the production even if the company does not release its rights over the drug.
tests underway
Meanwhile, scientists are conducting tests to determine whether bird flu cases discovered in Britain, Sweden and Croatia were the lethal strain that has killed more than 60 people, as countries around the world scrambled to halt the spread of the virus.
Health authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have asked residents in the capital Abu Dhabi to get rid of all pet birds or chickens they may be keeping in their homes, the local newspaper Gulf News reported yesterday.
Concerned authorities such as the municipality and environment agencies have advised residents to either kill their pets, eat the chickens, or hand over the birds to the municipality which will have them destroyed, the paper said.
Congo on Saturday joined a growing list of African countries to ban imports of livestock and poultry from countries affected by bird flu, and Russia recorded a new outbreak of the disease in a region of the Ural mountains.
In Croatia, the Agriculture Ministry said the country's first cases of avian flu were confirmed on Friday in six swans found dead in a national park in the east of the country.
far-flung cases
The H5N1 strain has recently been found in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.
Sweden's National Veterinary Institute said late on Saturday that a case of bird flu had been confirmed in one of four ducks found dead on Friday in Eskilstuna, about 100km west of Stockholm. Officials said it would take days to determine whether it was the H5N1 strain.
H5N1 is easily transmitted between birds, but is hard for humans to contract. Experts are closely watching the disease, however, for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted between humans and cause a pandemic that could kill millions.
In Croatia, Minister of Agriculture Petar Cobankovic said ``there is no room for panic'' in the wake of the country confirming its first cases of bird flu, in wild migratory swans.
In Britain, the chief veterinarian, Debby Reynolds, said the country's disease-free status was not affected by the case of bird flu there, because the parrot had died while in quarantine. She said the incident demonstrated the importance of Britain's tough quarantine system.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS