Taiwan’s government decided to adopt emergency measures banning transportations of poultries and eggs throughout the country, since outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian flu viruses have been continuing particularly in a central part of the country.
The government is urgently making effort to contain the spread of the bird flu as early as possible, taking into account a lesson learnt in 2015 that a delay in taking measures required at the initial stage caused a spread of the disease in many areas.
According to the official announcement, the transportations of poultries will be totally banned for seven days starting from February 17, and the meat processing houses are ordered to suspend their operation during the period.
A penalty of 100,000 TWD or about 370,000 yen per case will be levied against anyone breaking the regulation.
In Taiwan, the bird flu was confirmed at 13 poultry farms and more than 120,000 poultries were culled since the beginning of the year, which has put the authorities on higher alert.
In 2015, the highly pathogenic avian flu spread in the island, where as many as 5.4 million poultry birds were culled at 1005 farms.
Outbreaks of the bird flu at 37 farms led to culling of some 280,000 birds in 2016 as well.