France is affected for the fourth time since 2015 by this virus that does not spare its European neighbors.
Le Monde with AFP and Reuters
The outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (IAHP or bird flu) which has already resulted in the slaughter of about 600,000 and 650,000 poultry in one month in France, continues its progression. “By the time I’m talking to you, (…) We have in France 41 breeding contamination households,” Julien Denormandie announced, the Minister of Agriculture at a press conference Tuesday, January 4th.
At the end of last weekend, the balance sheet reported 26 households in farms, since the observation of the first case in the north at the end of November. Most cases are now listed in the Southwest. The minister considers the situation better that last winter, when the epizootic had been at the root of nearly 500 livestock homes leading to more than three million poultry, mainly ducks.
“Last year at the same time we were more than sixty” fireplaces. “It’s been a number of weeks since the virus dissemination was no longer under control,” Denormandie continued.
More than 600,000 poultry shot
Twenty homes are located in the Landes, eight in the North, seven in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, five in the Gers and one in Vendée, according to the website of the Ministry of Agriculture . In Vendée, the virus was detected in the municipality of Beaufou, about twenty kilometers north of La Roche-sur-Yon, within a building with 12,500 turkeys. The department estimated December 31 that between 600,000 and 650,000 poultry had been shot since the beginning of the epizootic. It did not communicate updated data on Tuesday.
Detection of a highly pathogenic avian influenza focus (IAHP) H5N1 in # Vendée
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The appearance of this new home in this Western region on certain migratory channels may be of concern to the extent that it also houses many farms, said the Reuters Yann Nédélec press agency, director of Anvol, French interprofessional group of the poultry sector.
“The slaughter of the birds present in the infected building ended on January 2nd. The depopulation of the other poultry still present on the site is in progress. Presumably the origin of the introduction of the virus was Made via the wild birdlife, “says the prefecture of Vendée in a statement on Tuesday. “The first visits and analyzes made by veterinarians [around the operation concerned] did not detect other contamination households,” adds the prefecture.
m. Denormandie also defended the confinement, imposed from the beginning of November, outdoor poultry to avoid contacts with migratory birds carrying the virus. The measure, often lived as a heartbreaker by breeders and denounced by part of the profession, had been decreed in September, in the most at-risk areas. “The protective measures were necessary. If we did not take them, the situation I describe today would be much more dramatic,” said the minister.
In addition to the farms, twenty cases have been identified in wildlife and three in low-private casings, according to the department. France is affected for the fourth time since 2015 by this virus that does not spare its European neighbors.
According to Marie-Pierre Pé, Director of the Interprofessional Committee of Palmipede Foie Gras (CIFOG), the situation is not as worrying, at this stage, that in the previous crisis, between the fall 2020 and spring 2021, when 3.5 million poultry had had to be slaughtered to limit the spread of the virus. “We have greatly reduced the number of animals, they are all inside, but you have to go quickly in the race against the virus because it is easily introduced into the farms,” she said Reuters.