Taipei - Taiwan said Saturday it was suspending poultry exports for at least three months owing to an outbreak of what officials said was a mild form of bird flu. "Tests have confirmed that the bird flu that broke out at the chicken farm in Kaohsiung County on October 21 is the low pathogenic strain of H5N2 birdflu. It is transmitted only from poultry to poultry and not to humans," Chen Wu-hsiung, chairman of the Council of Agriculture, told reporters.
"Even so, we are treating the case with the same seriousness as if it were the H5N1 type," he said.
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) had been notified, and exports would resume export if no outbreak was reported at the 76 chicken farms within a three-kilometre radius of the infected farm in the three months, he added.
After the Taiwanese press reported the outbreak on Wednesday, Japan immediately stopped importing Taiwan ducks, pending the outcome of tests. Japan, biggest importer of the ducks, takes 5,000 tons as year, worth 23 million dollars.
