The Council of Agriculture (COA), Executive Yuan takes effective measures to prevent the current epidemic on the poultry in Taiwan. An announcement was made to halt all poultry slaughtering from February 17th, midday to February 24th, midday. Prior to the slaughter suspension at the 15 registered slaughterhouses within the Yunlin County totals of daily poultry slaughters are approximately as follows; 120,000 chickens, 12,000 ducks, and 1,300 geese. After 12pm on February 24th the slaughterhouses may resume their procedures. Slaughterhouse veterinarians are expected to implement strict health inspections on the poultry and provide verification on the results of the inspection. After the 25th, all slaughterhouses in Yunlin will be supervised under these conditions.
The Agriculture Department points out that the country’s annual chicken breeding and slaughtering numbers consists of approximately 80 million chickens, with approximately 22 million bred as free-range chickens. During the 7 day slaughtering ban, there is an estimate of about 1.5-1.8 million free-range chickens accumulating at the slaughterhouses. After the slaughtering ban has been lifted, the daily number of chickens being slaughtered will increase by a factor of 1.6. The increased number of daily slaughters will take approximately 5-6 working days before returning to the original daily slaughtering numbers.
In accordance with the COA regulations, from the period February 24th to May 31st ducks must be tested to determine that the bird flu is negative and a test report and health certificate need to be released prior to any slaughtering. After the tests have passed, a portion of the duck field still needs to wait before the rest can be slaughtered. The overall duck slaughtering volume has increased by about 20 percent.
The Agriculture Department Director, Zhang Shizhong, said the Yunlin County Animal and Plant Disease Control Center (APDCC) have a total of 55 registered duck fields that needs to be inspected. Of the 55 duck fields, 31 fields have been tested and none have shown signs of bird flu. There are still 24 cases to be tested, and the respective slaughterhouse veterinarians will check each batch of ducks to produce inspection results. On top of the inspections, a strict process of inspecting the health of the ducks prior to being slaughtered and then another inspection on the carcasses will be done. Should the results are inconsistent with the initial condition report, there will be further investigations to locate the origins of the disease to ensure safety.
Yunlin County Government will actively cooperate with the Executive Yuan and the Epidemic Prevention Department of the COA to implement a system to monitor the registered duck fields. Strict requirements are requested from the specialized slaughterhouse veterinarians when generating a health report on the status of the poultry. If the health reports are not correctly provided, legal actions will be taken towards the veterinarian in accordance with the Animal Disease Prevention and Control Regulations, resulting in the removal of the veterinarian.
The Department of Agriculture once again reminds the poultry industry and slaughterhouses’ specialized veterinarians that cooperation with the relevant epidemic prevention is adamant, and if diseases are detected, be sure to inform the APDCC and collectively prevent an epidemic. Also to call on locals to choose a legitimate slaughterhouse that has qualified their inspections and to recognize the certified slaughterhouse mark to ensure the poultry is safe.