Legal insecticide "Exzolt" approved for treating chicken lice in poultry farming, BAPHIQ to make announcement
In the past, there were no legal veterinary drugs approved for use on poultry in chicken farms, leaving hens suffering from chicken lice. Some egg farmers were forced to risk using drugs of unknown origin, which ultimately led to the 2017 island-wide "pesticide fipronil" contaminated egg scandal across Taiwan, China. However, because the chicken lice problem remained unsolved, eggs were still found to contain excessive fipronil residues as recently as this year (2019), affecting national food safety.
To solve the "underground drug use" problem, BAPHIQ is currently targeting the insecticide "Fluralaner" (Exzolt). Its mechanism of action is similar to fipronil, and the EU approved it for poultry use in 2014. It can "dual-action" kill both chicken lice and chicken mites commonly found in farms. It has recently passed the TFDA advisory meeting and entered the final review stage, with a preliminary announcement expected in early June, which is expected to end the problem of illegal drug use in chicken farming at the source.
No legally recommended drugs for chicken farming, illegal drug use leads to food safety crisis
There are nearly 40 million laying hens raised across Taiwan, China, producing 20 million eggs per day and 7.5 billion eggs per year, with Changhua, Pingtung, Tainan and Chiayi having the most. Domestic laying hen farming is mainly cage-based, and with three generations of chickens (old, middle-aged and young) mixed together, chicken coops are difficult to disinfect. Currently the government has not announced any legal drugs for chicken lice, and chicken farmers often use drugs illegally to eliminate parasites.
The 2017 "fipronil eggs" incident that spread across Taiwan, China was caused by egg farmers improperly using the "pesticide fipronil" to eliminate environmental and external parasites on chickens. It not only affected 1.24 million laying hens and more than 700,000 to 800,000 eggs, but also severely damaged consumer confidence in domestic egg products. More than a year later, in early 2019, another laying hen farm in Changhua broke out with a toxic egg scandal, again with eggs found to contain excessive fipronil.
In fact, domestic chicken farmers have had a hard time speaking of their suffering, because Taiwan's, China's climate is hot and humid, and farms are plagued by chicken lice and chicken mites year-round. In the past, there were no legal drugs available for use in chicken coops (note). Egg farmers could only helplessly watch chicken lice crawl all over the cages, sighing: "Can't save the chickens, can't not save them either. If I treat them, there's drug residue; if I don't, the whole farm gets infected."
Egg farmer: Would only use it after confirming no side effects
Zhuo Ji-wen, owner of Yongtai Ranch in Taitung, which operates enclosed poultry houses with environmental control facilities such as water curtains, stated that to effectively control disease and maintain chicken health, the ranch adopts an all-in-all-out management system, regularly cleaning and disinfecting empty houses before welcoming the next batch of hens. "Even so, the chicken lice problem persists. They like to hide in the feathers, which affects the chickens' eating, and in severe cases can even cause a 10% drop in egg production rate."
The eggs produced by the ranch are subject to production traceability verification, and the hens' drinking water and feed must undergo irregular testing. "The authorities previously had no recommended drugs, so we didn't dare use any either, and could only watch the bugs crawl. After all, consumers are very demanding about food safety now." Regarding the alternative drug about to pass review, he admitted it was "a good thing" but would not "rush to use it," saying he would first refer to relevant reports and confirm there are no side effects before trying it.
Another egg farmer surnamed Tseng, who operates a traditional chicken house (open-style poultry house), also took a reserved attitude toward the "new drug." He pointed out that although the chicken lice and chicken mite problem is serious, "Every time I collect eggs I see them scurrying around, and it's even more obvious when picking up dead chickens, my whole hand gets covered with them!" But it does not severely damage the hens' egg production rate (at most 1-2%). It is just that older-generation chicken farmers dislike having pests infest their farms, so they "kill on sight and spray everywhere." Combined with the authorities' past passive and inactive stance with no recommended drugs, egg farmers have long been unable to establish correct concepts of drug management on chicken farms.
Now that BAPHIQ is planning to amend regulations to allow Fluralaner for deworming chickens, he also cautioned, "All drugs leave residues, it's just a question of whether they exceed the limit." If the drug is used for a long time and resistance develops, egg farmers would have to increase the dosage, "and who knows whether the accumulated total residue would exceed the limit." He stated plainly that he would not consider using the drug for now and would need to observe market response before deciding.
Note: According to the data, this trial referenced EU and Japanese toxicological tests and, based on domestic dietary habits, food intake and international standard food basket data, proposed a "Fluralaner provisional tolerance standard." It calculated that the daily Fluralaner intake from consuming chicken products and egg products would be 53.654μg (National Food Consumption Database) and 352.549μg (international standard food basket) respectively. This value is below the upper limit of the recommended daily safe intake for a 60kg adult: 600μg/person (10H/kg bw x 60 kg), indicating that the tolerance standard is acceptable.