Bordeaux (AFP)
A second duck farm was contaminated with "highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N8" in the Landes department where "the disease is progressing", the prefecture announced Thursday.
This new outbreak, identified in the town of Saint-Geours de Maremne, was confirmed by the national reference laboratory of ANSES (National Health Security Agency), said the prefecture in a press release.
This town is located in the south of the department, not far from Bénesse-Maremne, where a first case had been confirmed at the beginning of the week in another farm whose 6,000 ducks had been slaughtered.
In an attempt to isolate the progression of the virus, which is not transmissible to humans, the prefecture has placed around forty towns in a "protection zone".
This return of avian influenza (commonly known as avian flu) sends duck farmers in the South-West back to the crises of the winters of 2015/16 and 2016/17, when epizootics of this type had led to massive slaughterings, even though the The sector is already hard hit by the covid epidemic, which has closed restaurants and reduced festive occasions.
© 2020 AFP