The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine has just announced the first outbreak of low-pathogenic H5N2 bird flu in Taiwan this year. The infection was reported at a chicken farm in Sikou Township of Chiayi County. Local authorities said that they have confined and disinfected the area, to prevent the virus from spreading.

The constant changes of weather patterns could trigger outbreaks of low-pathogenic H5N2 virus strains, which already exist in the environment.

The Council of Agriculture announced the first bird flu case of this year on Monday evening, where a chicken farm in Chiayi was found to be infected with the virus.

No clinical symptoms were seen in any of the chickens at black-feather stud poultry farm, and the meat is not sold to the market directly.

The Animal Disease Control Center under the Chiayi County government has already imposed a ban on the movement of the roughly 5,000 chicken studs on the farm, to prevent the virus from spreading.

Other poultry farms with a 3-kilometer radius of the site are also monitored.

The Council of Agriculture said the virus is not the H5N1 high-pathogenic strain that broke out in chicken farms in Japan and South Korea.

While the authority is not to kill all the infected chicken, it will report the case to the World Organization for Animal Health.

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