After participating in the flag-raising ceremony for the 2006 New Year's Day, Vice President Annette Lu visited Pingtung County, attending the 2006 Anti-bird Flu Buddhist ceremony and examining the plans for the Saijia Aviation Park and the works of Peng Chun-Lin, winner of the top design prize in the fourth aboriginal weaving competition now on display at Ching Yeh Primary School. Her presence gave the aboriginal children and teachers of Ching Yeh Primary School a warm New Year's Day.
At the Buddhist ceremony, she affirmed the need to remain vigilant against avian flu and offered her thanks for their efforts. She stated that it is possible for an outbreak of the bird flu after the Lunar New Year holiday, citing the joint research of World Health Organization and disease control experts, so everyone must remain cautious. The Vice President provided examples as a reminder: The deaths from avian flu epidemic outbreaks in 1918, 1950 and 1968 outnumbered those that occurred in the Great War and World War II combined, but people tend to have a deeper impression of those that occurred in the world wars while overlooking the danger of avian flu, which infested and bitterly killed 80 million people.
The Vice President said that the contagion is likely to spread quickly because the advent of modern technological developments and the advancement of transportation has increased the interaction of peoples. A few months ago, Mainland Chinese smuggling a shipment of valuable birds was found to have avian flu virus, thus attracting the attention of the public. Lu further pointed out that the increased likelihood of the spread of avian flu after Lunar New Year is due to birds migrating southward across China to avoid chilly Siberian wind currents. A significant number of cases of birds carrying the virus in China raise alarm that if this recent migration of birds southward is infected, then the entire Asian region could be affected. At present, 70 people have tested positive with the virus and there have been 40 cases in Vietnam, while records have begun to creep into coastal China. She said that President Chen Shui-bian's national security meeting months ago has indicated the authorities' concern for this threat.