Pingtung duck pre-market slaughter monitoring detects highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N8

A meat duck farm in Chaozhou Township, Pingtung County applied on January 31 for pre-market avian influenza testing; the specimen submitted by the Pingtung County Animal Disease Control Center was confirmed on February 5 as H5 subtype highly pathogenic avian influenza. The Animal Disease Control Center activated disease control mechanisms the same day in accordance with standard operating procedures, completing culling (3,136 meat ducks) and farm cleaning and disinfection operations. On the 6th, notification was received from the Animal Health Research Institute that the specimen from the farm had been confirmed through nucleic acid analysis as H5N8 subtype highly pathogenic avian influenza.

The Pingtung County Animal Disease Control Center stated that this case was the first H5N8 subtype avian influenza case of the year, and it had been reported to the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine of the Council of Agriculture in accordance with regulations. In terms of disease control, in addition to activating monitoring, sampling, visits and surrounding disinfection work for poultry farms within a 1 km radius of the farm to confirm the health status of poultry at surrounding farms and the absence of virus activity, it also activated disinfection of poultry transport vehicles at poultry slaughterhouses in the county, and strengthened disinfection work around poultry farms in high-risk townships with dense waterfowl and landfowl raising, hoping to eliminate the virus and avoid its spread in the shortest possible time.

The affected farm is a meat duck farm. Although it has facilities such as poultry houses, there is no netting around the poultry houses and the feed troughs are also open-style feeding, which easily attracts wild birds to forage and brings in new viruses. The Animal Disease Control Center called on poultry farmers to strengthen non-open-style raising, avoid contact between poultry and migratory (wild) birds, and, in accordance with the county government's announced "H5 and H7 Subtype Avian Influenza Prevention and Control Measures," implement the planning of biosafety levels for poultry house hardware facilities and software biosafety measures such as personnel, vehicle, and access control and farm cleaning and disinfection, so as to effectively reduce the probability of avian influenza occurrence.