The situation is very worrying when only 26 outbreaks were listed at the end of last week. 600,000 poultry have already been slaughtered.
France now has 41 outbreaks of avian influenza in breeding, including a first in the Vendée, announced Tuesday the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie, evoking a “great cause for concern“. The latest report, at the end of last week, reported 26 outbreaks in farms. The virus was detected for the first time in a breeding farm in the North at the end of November. Most cases are now recorded in the South West.
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“As I speak to you (…) in France we have 41 outbreaks of contamination in breeding», Declared the minister during a press conference. He believes the situation is better than last winter, when the epizootic had caused nearly 500 breeding outbreaks and more than three million poultry, mainly ducks, had been slaughtered. “Last year at the same time we were more than sixty”Of outbreaks. “It had been many weeks since the spread of the virus was no longer under control.“, Continued Julien Denormandie.
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600,000 poultry slaughtered
Twenty homes are located in the Landes, eight in the North, seven in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, five in the Gers and one in Vendée, the ministry told AFP. The ministry estimated on December 31 that between 600,000 and 650,000 poultry had been slaughtered since the start of the epizootic. He did not provide updated data on Tuesday. “What we follow more closely are the areas with the highest density“From farms,”in particular the Landes, in particular the Gers and we had a case in Vendée», Indicated Julien Denormandie.
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He also defended the confinement imposed, from the beginning of November, of outdoor poultry to avoid contact with migratory birds carrying the virus. The measure, often experienced as heartbreaking by breeders and denounced by part of the profession, had been decreed even earlier, in September, in the areas most at risk. “Protective measures were necessary. If we hadn’t taken them the situation I am describing to you today would be much more dramatic“, Estimated the minister. France is affected for the fourth time since 2015 by this virus which does not spare its European neighbors either.
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