Until now, sanitary protection measures have been limited to the slaughter of animals from the affected farm and disinfection of the site. The virus has been detected in eighteen outbreaks in France.
Le Monde with AFP
Massive preventive slaughter of ducks has been carried out decided in the Landes to “avoid as much as possible a strong spread” of avian influenza detected in eighteen outbreaks in France, the Landes prefecture announced Thursday, December 24, in a press release.
A to date the department is one of the most affected with Corsica, with seven outbreaks of H5N8 detected. Some 40,000 ducks from twenty-five farms will be slaughtered, according to Serge Mora, president of the Landes Family Farmers Defense Movement (Modef).
After “the recent contamination of two duck farms located in the Landes in the heart of Chalosse, a territory with a high density of poultry”, the prefecture said it had chosen “to adapt the prevention strategy of disease “. She decided to “proceed without delay to preventive depopulation targeted within a radius of three kilometers around the outbreaks of Sort-en-Chalosse and Bergouey”, in the south of the department.
So far , the health protection measures were limited to the slaughter of the animals of the affected farm, the disinfection of the site, the prohibition of the movement of poultry in the environment close to the outbreak and surveillance around the outbreak.
This time, all the farms will be slaughtered. Only ducks “because of their very high sensitivity to the H5N8 virus” are concerned by this slaughter, and, within a radius of one kilometer, other poultry which are not confined. The losses of the breeders will be compensated, assures the prefecture, which is also setting up psychological support for the farmers.
At the same time, surveillance zones of 10 kilometers around the outbreaks of Sort-en-Chalosse and Bergouey have been set up and “all ducks must be sheltered, as well as other poultry”.
“Sword in the water”
The contamination “will not stop”, this preventive slaughter “is a sword in the water”, estimates Serge Mora. Modef calls for slaughtering only sick animals: “Farmers want to make a living from their work,” says Mora. “I see the scenario of 2017, we will depopulate everything and we will have operators without activity for seven, eight or nine months,” he fears. Modef calls for demonstrations on Saturday in front of the Landes prefecture.
Recalling that the foie gras sector in the region represents “7,300 direct jobs and 16,000 indirect jobs and totals a turnover of 438 million euros “, the elected Socialist Landes wrote to the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie asking him to pay” the greatest attention “to the economic response provided.
“It is very important that compensation, linked to the consequences of depopulation and crawl spaces that will follow, intervene very quickly”, write Senators Monique Lubin and Eric Kerrouche , the deputy Boris Vallaud and the president of the departmental council Xavier Fortinon in a letter sent to AFP.
To date, eighteen outbreaks of avian influenza have been detected in six French departments: seven in Corsica, one in Yvelines, seven in Landes, one in Vend ée, one in the Hautes-Pyrénées and one in the Deux-Sèvres.
State services point out that, like several European countries, France is facing an episode of avian influenza highly pathogenic (HPAI) since mid-November. The virus in question (H5N8) exclusively affects birds. It is not transmissible to humans. The disease circulates actively in wildlife and manifests itself on the occasion of migrations towards the south.