WattAgNet: Taiwan’s avian flu losses mount

Over 1 billion birds have been culled in Taiwan

As of the end of last week, Taiwan had culled more than a billion birds so far in 2017 in a bid to control the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

Other countries reporting new HPAI outbreaks in poultry to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in the last week include Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, China, Nigeria and Cameroon.

There are early signs that the battle against HPAI may be being won in Europe.

Taiwan culls more than one million poultry in 2017
Latest information from the Council of Agriculture puts the number of outbreaks of HPAI in Taiwan at 112 this year, reported Focus Taiwan last week. More than 1,034,000,000 poultry have been destroyed to try to halt the spread of the virus.

The agriculture ministry in Taipei has reported 18 new HPAI outbreaks in poultry to the OIE over the last week involving the H5N2 virus variant. Ten of the outbreaks were in Yunlin county, while others were in the counties of Pingtung, Changhua, Chiayi and Kaohsiung, as well as Tainan city. Nine of the outbreaks were in flocks of native chickens, with the rest in ducks or chickens, with more than 236,700 birds being humanely destroyed following confirmation on the virus.

Almost 9,000 chickens died or were destroyed in Tainan city following the detection of the H5N8 subtype of the HPAI virus, according to another recent ministry report to the OIE.