H5N2 bird flu reported at chicken farm in Chiayi

2012/11/23 18:00:34

Taipei, Nov. 23 (CNA) Animal health officials have imposed a ban on the movement of chickens at a farm in southern Taiwan that has been found infected with low-pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza. Wong Yo-chu, director of the Chiayi County government's Animal Disease Control Center, said his agency will not allow the 15,700 chickens at the farm in Puzih to be moved off the premises, but they will be kept alive. "As it was low-pathogenic, we will not cull the chickens," Wong said, but the eggs laid by the chickens will have to be disinfected before they can be sold on the market. All 94 poultry farms within a 3-kilometer radius of the farm are being monitored, and no abnormal cases have been reported yet, Wong said. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine under the Council of Agriculture said Friday that it has filed a report of the Chiayi case with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). as confirmed to have been infected with H5N2 virus Thursday.