The animal and plant health inspection bureau has confirmed that the H5N2 bird flu virus strain at a Tainan farm in southern Taiwan is a known strain. All the chickens at the farm have been culled as of Wednesday night.
Head of the Animal Health Research Institute, Tsai Hsiang-jung said that further tests are needed to confirm whether this particular H5N2 virus is a highly pathogenic strain.
"If tests show that the strain has four or more bases, then it will be considered highly pathogenic. If it has only three bases, we will do further inoculation tests to see if it is a highly pathogenic strain," Tsai said. "Still, no matter what the case, a low pathogenic avian flu strain is still pathogenic."
The animal and plant inspection bureau said that the government would give full compensation for slaughtered poultry infected with low pathogenic strains.
The bureau reported on Thursday that the number of poultry farms being inspected for the bird flu has increased from 86 to 95. The number of farms with confirmed cases of H5N2 or H5N8 has reached 64.