Print Mail wiki links COA confirms Luchu bird flu outbreak RESOLVED: While there are no known cases of the H5N2 strain infecting humans, health authorities continued to monitor farms within a 3km radius of the outbreak
By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Dec 21, 2008, Page 1 The Council of Agriculture confirmed yesterday an outbreak of a lesser strain of the bird flu virus H5N2 at a chicken farm in Kaohsiung County’s Luchu Township (路竹). “The problem has been resolved. Starting in October, the farm was disinfected and we monitored the situation as if it were a highly pathogenic virus. The affected chickens were culled on Nov. 14,” Agriculture Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳?Z雄) told a press conference yesterday.
Chen said the results of a second round of samples from the affected chicken farm were confirmed by a panel of experts to be a low-pathogenic strain of H5N2.
Avian influenza has many different subtypes, including H5N1 and H5N2. The H5N1 subtype is highly pathogenic and can cause fever, coughing, sore throat, muscle ache, pneumonia or death when transmitted from birds to humans. There are no reports of H5N2 transmission to humans.
News of the outbreak were first made public by the council at a press conference on Wednesday, during which Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa (?J興華) said the council suspected an outbreak had occurred at a Kaohsiung chicken farm, adding that an investigation had been launched on Oct. 21.
Asked why it had taken so long for the test results to be made public, Animal Health Research Institute deputy director Lee Shu-hui (???Q?z) said “the examination requires careful work and is a complex process.”
“Our first results on Nov. 12 showed what looked like a high-pathogenic strain of H5N2, but as less than 3 percent of chickens in the population died, the result did not agree with the lab test,” Lee said.
To ensure they did not miss a potential threat, Lee said her team decided to do a second examination while seeking to avoid causing a panic. She said that as soon as the lab had the slightest evidence that there may have been a bird flu outbreak in October, she informed the council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine to initiate epidemic prevention mechanisms.
While the affected farm was thoroughly disinfected, farms within a radius of 3km have also been monitored since October, she said.
“After viral separation and cultivation, second results showed that the chickens had a H5N2 Intravenous Pathogenicity Index [IVPI] of 0.89, which makes it low-pathogenic,” she said.
An IVPI over 1.2 would be high-pathogenic.
Responding to comments by former minister of health Twu Shiing-jer (�?�) that testing for avian flu would only take one to two days, Lee said that what Twu was referred to was identifying H5N1 contamination in humans.
“I can also have results within two days, but my results may show a negative while a longer cultivation time may show a positive result,” she said.
Regarding the risk to humans, Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Director-General Watson Sung (宋華?o) said there were no known cases of H5N2 mutating into the H5N1 strain, which can affect humans.
This was the only instance of bird flu in Taiwan, Soong said, adding that “high” or “low” pathogenic referred to chickens, not humans.
“On Nov. 14, the farm owner voluntarily culled all the chickens as a precautionary measure,” Chen said. “Now that we have confirmed the results, we will report the case to the World Organization for Animal Health. We will also continue to monitor the 76 chicken farms around the affected farm for three months before applying for poultry exportation to Japan.”
Chen said losses in sales of chicken to Japan would be in the several millions of NT dollars.
This story has been viewed 1297 times.
Advertising
3D Modell Influenzavirus.
New outbreaks of H5N2 have been confirmed in Taiwan. Council of Agriculture (COA) Minister Chen Wu-hsiung has confirmed on Saturday that "the recent chicken deaths at a poultry farm in Kaohsiung County’s Luchu Township (on October 21) were caused by the low-pathogenic H5N2 bird flu virus, that is not communicable to humans." They had slaughtered 18,000 chickens on November 14. "The problem has been resolved," he said. COA has been monitoring wild and migratory birds and said "it is still investigating the source of the infection."

Lujhu Township (蘆竹鄉) is a rural township in northwestern Taoyuan County in Taiwan. It is located at kilometer 49 of the Highway no.1, close to the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (IATA: TPE). Kaohsiung County (高雄縣, Gāoxióng Xiàn, Gaosyóng Siàn, Kao-hsiung Hsien; Ko-hiông-kōan) is a county in southern Taiwan administered as a County of Taiwan. It encloses but does not include Kaohsiung City.

Mr Huang Kwo-ching, deputy director of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, however, said, "we took the most stringent measures in dealing with the episode as according to the rules of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), there was no need to slaughter those chickens." 

A transmission electron micrograph of influenza A virus, late passage.
H5N2 is a subtype of the species Influenzavirus A (avian influenza virus or bird flu virus). A highly pathogenic strain of H5N2 caused bird flu outbreaks with significant spread to numerous farms, resulting in great economic losses in 1983 in Pennsylvania, USA in chickens and turkeys, in 1994 in Mexico in chickens and a minor outbreak in 1997 in Italy in chickens. 

Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa (胡興華) explained that “after viral separation and cultivation, second results showed that the chickens had a H5N2 Intravenous Pathogenicity Index IVPI of 0.89, which makes it low-pathogenic,” adding that "We will also continue to monitor the 76 chicken farms around the affected farm for three months.”

Taiwan has thus stopped its poultry exports for at least three months. 

Meanwhile, Taiwan News has reported that "Japan has banned the imports of Taiwan’s poultry. Being the biggest duck provider to Japan, Taiwan exports 5,000 tons of duck annually worth US$23 million (approximately NT$750 million). For the time being, US$4 million (NT$130 million) worth of duck in the process of shipping, customs clearance is expected to be affected." For this reason, COA has promised to subsidize poultry farmers affected by the virus which broke out on October 21. H5N2 avian flu strain first broke out in Taiwan in January 2004.