Photo courtesy of Changhua County government

Taipei, Jan. 20 (CNA) Over 11,000 chickens and ducks have been culled on two farms in Pingtung and Changhua counties after it was confirmed that they had been infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 strain of avian influenza, inspection officials said Saturday.

A total of 10,450 chickens on a farm in Pingtung's Neipu Township and 1,362 ducks on a farm in Changhua's Erlin Township were culled, according to the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.

That brings the total number of poultry farms hit by avian influenza to 12 so far this year, and the total number of birds culled to 115,055, the bureau said.

January and February is the peak season for avian flu, the bureau said, warning poultry farms to step up their safety measures and prevent their livestock from coming into contact with wild birds.

According to the bureau, variants of the H5N2, H5N3 and H5N8 of the disease were discovered in Taiwan in 2015, but the latter two strains have since been controlled, leaving H5N2 the only strain detected in the country at present.

(By Hsiao Po-yang and Christie Chen)
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