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Taiwan is reporting that this outbreak is the H5N2 virus, and while the large number of bird deaths suggest this could be a highly pathogenic strain, it should pose little danger to humans.
Unlike the H5N1 virus, H5N2 has never been shown to cause illness in humans.
This report from Radio Taiwan International.
12/17/2008
Latest bird flu outbreak no cause for alarm: government
The latest outbreak of avian flu on a farm in southern Taiwan is not a cause for panic, according to health minister Yeh Chin-chuan on Wednesday. Yeh said that the flu which killed large numbers of birds on a farm in Tainan County was the H5N2 strain and not the H5N1 strain which can be deadly to humans. The minister was speaking in the Legislature on Wednesday.
"Taiwan has not had any cases of H5N1," said Yeh, "This case was H5N2, and the Council of Agriculture reported it to the Department of Health, so we were aware of it and announced it accordingly. H5N2 is not very contagious and there has not been a single case worldwide where H5N2 has been passed on to a human being. So there is no need for public alarm."
Yeh also said that Taiwan has placed a stop on imports of live poultry and eggs from Hong Kong and China following recent cases of the more infectious and deadly H5N1 strain.
Taiwan's most serious outbreak of bird flu was in 2004, when the H5N2 strain was found on 24 poultry farms around the country. The outbreak caused losses to the country's poultry industry of around NT $2.5 billion (US $75 million).
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