President Chen Shui-bian inspected a chicken farm enclosed by nets on March 23, urging chicken farmers not to vaccinate chickens on their own or with illegal vaccines.
The inspection is the last part of a three-part inspection series, aiming to oversee the avian flu prevention work. Prior to this stop, the president had visited a coastal patrol command and a branch center of the National Health Institute.
The president's purpose at this stop was to inspect the netting of the chicken farm, saying that, besides vaccinating poultry, to enclose farms with nets is also effective. "We can control people's moving inbound and outbound, but we cannot prevent migratory birds from coming, staying, and going," the president said and added that separating domestic livestock from migratory birds is one of the most important prevention tasks.
According to the Council of Agriculture under the Executive Yuan, while almost all chicken farms and pig farms have been netted, the percentage of netted waterfowl farms is only 76 percent. For this reason, the president asked the officials who also joined the visit to expedite the measure.
"When an avian flu outbreak happens, the loss of the country's production value would likely reach NT$30 billion and an extra amount of NT$4.8 billion would be needed for rehabilitation," said the president, citing a report made by the Council of Agriculture.
Therefore, before concluding the visit, the president told the farmers and the attendees that to combat avian flu we can not solely rely on tamiflu or vaccines. "In cooperation, we stand," the president said.