March 13, 2012

Taiwan to stabilise bird flu outbreaks by June 2012

The avian influenza cases that have hit four chicken farms in central and southern Taiwan since last December are seen to be stabilised within three months, an official at the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA) said Friday (Mar 9).

"The outbreaks should have peaked by that time," said COA Animal Health Research Institute Director-General Huang Chin-cheng.

However, Huang said he could not be 100% sure that there will be no new cases in the future.

Huang Kwo-ching, deputy director-general of the council's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said the recent outbreaks have not yet reached critical levels.

There have only been several isolated cases reported so far, he said.

The four chicken farms that have reported outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian flu virus are located in Changhua County in central Taiwan and in Tainan in the south of the country. Culling has been performed at these farms to curtail further outbreaks.