Two more cases of tilapia lake virus reported in Taoyuan, fry sourced from Tainan and Chiayi
Tilapia Lake Virus (TiLV) has been confirmed in two more cases! After a tilapia farm in Guanyin Township, Taoyuan City reported a mass die-off of tilapia from the lake virus, the Council of Agriculture held another press conference today to explain that testing within a three-kilometer radius of the infected farm had uncovered two new infected farms: one has already seen mass mortalities, while the other remains calm, with no mass die-off of fish.
Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng said an "Emergency Response Team for Tilapia Lake Virus" has now been established, with continued sampling and testing; movement controls will be imposed for at least 2 weeks, and dead tilapia will be removed.
The two infected farms purchased fry from Tainan and Chiayi respectively
Huang Chin-cheng said the first infected farm had purchased fry from a Tainan fry farm, the second farm that saw a mass die-off has not been managed and has not brought in fry, while the farm that remains calm had purchased fry from a Chiayi fry farm.
In response to outside suspicions that "imported fry" brought in the virus, Huang Chin-cheng replied that this year three batches of fry had been imported from mainland China, "but all were imported around April." This does not match the timing of the outbreak; moreover, upon inspection, the fry at the two fry farms in Tainan and Chiayi showed no abnormalities. Therefore, the emergency response team is still unable to determine the exact source of infection.
Tu Chien, head of the Animal Health Research Institute's division under the Council of Agriculture, said sampling and testing will be carried out at 12 broodstock farms; 5 or 6 broodstock farms have already submitted samples, and results will be reported to the public once available.
Mainland China is a major source of tilapia imports and has also seen lake virus outbreaks, yet imports have not yet been banned
As for food safety, which the consumer market is mainly concerned about, Huang Chin-cheng repeatedly stressed, "Tilapia on the market is fine." Tilapia production in the Taoyuan area, where the outbreak occurred, accounts for only about 1.5% of total production in Taiwan, and inspections of farms in Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan and other major tilapia-producing areas show they are "safe and sound."
Huang Chin-cheng also noted that the main source of tilapia imports is currently mainland China. "Although mainland China has not reported the outbreak to the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health), a review of mainland Chinese media shows there appears to have been an outbreak of lake virus." Consideration is now being given to announcing a ban on imports of tilapia fry from mainland China; restrictions on imports of tilapia fry from OIE-declared epidemic areas such as Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Israel and Thailand are also not ruled out. "It will be finalized once the administrative procedures are completed."
