Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine director Hsu Tien-lai (許天來) resigned yesterday amid allegations he covered up a bird flu outbreak, a day after authorities announced they had culled thousands of chickens.
The Council of Agriculture yesterday said Hsu’s resignation had been approved and that his case has been sent to the Control Yuan for investigation.
The council held an emergency press conference on Saturday to announce that specialists had confirmed strains of the H5N2 avian influenza virus in Changhua County and Greater Tainan were highly pathogenic and that 57,500 chickens had been culled to prevent the virus from spreading.
Photo: CNA
Hsu said the chickens from the reported sites had all been culled and sanitizing measures had been completed within a 3km perimeter around the sites.
Yang Wen-yuan (楊文淵), a division director at the bureau, said in addition to the two cases in Changhua and Tainan, another case of H5N2 had been reported in Changhua as well as two in Nantou County, but so far on-site investigations had not revealed signs of exceptional clinical symptoms.
Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Wang Cheng-teng (王政騰) reiterated that it has been scientifically proven that H5N2 only inflects birds and does not affect humans.
Wang said export losses for egg products was estimated at between NT$500 million (US$17 million) and NT$700 million.
A new director of the bureau has not yet been chosen, Wang said.
According to Kevin H. J. Lee (李惠仁), a freelance journalist who spent more than six years investigating avian influenza in Taiwan and directed a documentary entitled A Secret That Can’t Be Exposed (不能戳的秘密), the council concealed the truth about the virus.
Lee began his investigation after a mass outbreak of avian influenza in Changhua in 2004, filming in chicken coops across the country and even dissecting dead chickens to procure tissue samples for testing.
On Dec. 25 last year, Lee sent a dead chicken that he suspected was infected with H5N2 avian influenza, along with the location of the farm in Changhua County, to the bureau, but the bureau responded by saying that the virus was not highly pathogenic.
“In the process of my investigation, I discovered the situation is very different to what the council tells us. I discovered that the council has lied about the whole thing since 2004,” Lee said.
“After analyzing the sampled genes, it was concluded that the avian influenza found is an endemic avian influenza viral strain,” Hsu said on Saturday. “The first case was found in Changhua on Dec. 27 and it has been dealt with this morning. It was only yesterday [Friday] that the case was determined to be highly pathogenic.”
Responding to questions from the media on why the bureau initially denied Lee’s claim, but now says the virus is highly pathogenic, Hsu said clinical and laboratory results lead to different conclusions — it had a low clinical death rate, but genetic testing showed signs that it was highly pathogenic according to the intravenous pathogenicity index method described by the World Organization for Animal Health.
Huang Li-min (黃立民), a pediatrician at National Taiwan University Hospital, said the virus might have existed for quite some time in Taiwan and that if people had frequent contact with the birds, there was a possibility of infection.
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses and
RSS