A health official yesterday called British veterinary experts irresponsible for saying that a South American parrot infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu picked up the virus from Taiwanese birds in British quarantine.
"The British authorities do not have solid evidence while making a statement implicating the possible source of a bird flu virus in another country," Yeh Ying (
"It's very dangerous and irresponsible," she said.
British veterinary officials late on Sunday announced that the parrot imported from Surinam had tested positive for H5N1, the strain of bird flu which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003.
But with no cases of H5N1 yet discovered in South America, British veterinary experts suspect the parrot was infected when it was exposed to other birds from Taiwan while being kept in mandatory quarantine.
"Our working hypothesis is that any infection in the birds from Surinam is likely to have arisen in the quarantine system, most likely in the facility in Essex where the Surinam birds shared airspace with the birds from Taiwan," said Debby Reynolds, chief veterinarian of Britain's department of environment, food and rural affairs.
More tests on the Taiwanese birds were underway, she said in a statement.
Yeh said Taiwan's liaison office in London had checked with British health authorities "and their reply is that there is no problem with birds from Taiwan."
Avian flu is a highly infectious virus among both wild and domestic birds. So far, humans have caught the H5N1 strain after coming into close and prolonged contact with infected birds.
But scientists fear it could mutate with human flu strains and become easily transmissible between people, sparking a deadly pandemic like the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918.
Authorities here have expressed concern that Taiwan could be hit with outbreaks from either birds migrating from China, which has been struck with H5N1, or those smuggled into the country.
British authorities said that the H5N1 found in the parrot was most similar to the virus found in China.
"The closest match is a strain identified in ducks in China earlier this year. It is not so similar to the strains from Romania and Turkey," Reynolds said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS