Evoking a "great source of concern", the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie announced on Tuesday that 41 outbreaks of avian influenza in breeding, including a first in Vendée, were now identified in France.
At the end of last week, the report showed 26 outbreaks in farms since the first case in the North at the end of November.
Most cases are now recorded in the South West.
“As I speak to you (…) we have 41 outbreaks of contamination in farming in France”, declared the Minister during a press conference.
Twenty households in the Landes
He estimates the situation to be better than last winter, when the epizootic was at the origin of nearly 500 breeding outbreaks leading to the slaughter of more than three million poultry, mainly ducks.
"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.
Twenty outbreaks 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.
In Vendée, the virus was detected in the town of Beaufou in a building housing 12,500 turkeys, according to local authorities.
“The culling of the birds in the infected building was completed on January 2.
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 avifauna ”, affirms the prefecture of Vendée in a press release Tuesday.
"The first visits and analyzes made by veterinarians" around the operation concerned "did not detect other sources of contamination", adds the prefecture.
Containment in farms
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. Julien Denormandie 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 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.
In addition to farms, twenty cases have been identified in wildlife and three in private backyards, according to the ministry.
France is affected for the fourth time since 2015 by this virus which does not spare its European neighbors either.
epidemic
Video
Avian Flu
Society
Animals
Poultry
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