A chicken slaughtered at a poultry wholesale market in Taipei was confirmed to be infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N2, but other chickens in the same batch were free of the disease, Council of Agriculture officials said yesterday.
A veterinarian at the market’s slaughterhouse on Saturday last week informed the city government that a slaughtered chicken might be infected with bird flu and the council kept the batch of 39 chickens it was part of for further inspection.
The council’s Animal Health Research Institute on Monday confirmed that only one chicken was infected with H5N2, but the whole batch was destroyed, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Shih Tai-hua (施泰華) said.
The chickens were the last batch delivered from a poultry farm in Pingtung County’s Yanpu Township (鹽埔), Shih said, adding that no other infection was detected in the farm’s previous batches.
Both the market and the farm were disinfected, he said, adding that the council would put 15 sentinel chickens at the farm, which can resume business if no further infections are found in the next three months.
Despite the warm weather, sporadic cases of bird flu have been reported in central and southern regions, with most infected birds being native chickens, he said.
As of 6pm yesterday, 1,475,628 birds infected with avian flu viruses have been destroyed at 153 farms since the beginning of this year, bureau data showed.
In the first half of the year, poultry farms were plagued by the H5N6 virus, which an infect people.
The last H5N6 case was reported on March 6 in Hualien County’s Yuli Township (玉里), the council said, adding recent bird flu cases were related to the H5N2 and H5N8 strains.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
RSS