By Sudouest.fr with AFP
A first case has just been identified in Vendée. The Landes are the most affected department
France now has 41 outbreaks of avian flu in breeding, including a first in the Vendée, announced Tuesday the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, evoking a “great source of 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.
The Landes and Gers closely watched
The Minister believes the situation is better than last winter, when the epizootic was at the origin of nearly 500 breeding outbreaks and more than three million poultry, mainly ducks, had been slaughtered. “Last year at the same time we were at more than sixty” homes. “It had been many weeks since the spread of the virus was no longer under control at all,” continued Julien Denormandie.
20 homes are located in the Landes, eight in the North, seven in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, five in the Gers and one in the Vendée, said the ministry. The latter 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 are following more closely are the areas with the greatest density” of breeding, “in particular the Landes, in particular the Gers and we had a case in Vendée,” said Julien Denormandie.
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 had not taken them, the situation that I am describing to you today would be much more dramatic ”, estimated the Minister.