COA to track migratory birds in flu effort

Officials from the COA’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Inspection and Quarantine said Thursday that tracking migratory birds and their travel patterns with the devices will help Taiwan better monitor the birds so that avian flu can be kept at bay during the winter, when the birds are following their migration routes.

The bureau is planning to cooperate with wild bird societies around the country to install GPS microchips on visiting migratory birds, bureau officials said.

In light of recent outbreaks of the virulent H5N1 strain of avian flu at poultry farms in Japan and South Korea, the COA is paying extra attention to the arrival and activities of migratory birds from the north, bureau officials said.

They noted that the northern migratory birds follow several routes when traveling south to winter. Most of these birds travel to Taiwan either from Siberia via the Korean peninsula and Japan, or from Siberia via southern China.

News reports have also said that South Korea has recently culled nearly 250,000 chickens to try to prevent the spread of bird flu.

Meanwhile, the officials said, in addition to the GPS installation and stepped-up wild bird monitoring, the bureau has also pushed chicken and poultry farms to erect wire fences to keep Taiwan’s local stock separated from wild birds, since preventing contact between wild birds and domestic animals is also very important in avian flu prevention.

Vietnam, Hong Kong and Japan have reported bird flu outbreaks this month, while Indonesian officials said four people died recently from H5N1. Myanmar reported its first H5N1 outbreak in chickens and quail last March at farms in the central part of the country. Bird flu killed 42 of the 93 people infected in Vietnam in 2003-2005.

Bird flu, which does not easily infect humans, has so far killed 161 people globally since 2003, a relatively small number compared to other diseases, according to the World Health Organization. But epidemiologists fear the H5N1 virus could trigger a global pandemic if it were to mutate and become easily transmitted among humans.

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