Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Jenny Evans / GETTY IMAGES ASIAPAC / Getty Images via AFP 7:20 p.m., January 18, 2024
Banned for sale since December 27 after massive poisonings, the Gironde prefecture has announced that oysters from the Arcachon basin can once again be marketed from this Friday.
Since December 22, “no new contaminating events have been recorded on shellfish from the Arcachon Basin”.
Oysters from the Arcachon basin (Gironde), banned for sale since December 27 after massive poisonings around Christmas, will be able to be sold again from Friday, the Gironde prefecture announced on Thursday.
"On the unanimous opinion of the departmental health commission which he chaired today, the prefect of Gironde decided (...) to lift the temporary ban on fishing and marketing activities intended for human consumption of all shellfish from the Arcachon Basin from Friday January 19, 2024 at 9:00 a.m.", the prefecture indicated in a press release.
The prefect announces “increase monitoring of the bacteriological quality of water and shellfish”
According to state services, "no new contaminating event has been recorded on shellfish from the Arcachon Basin" since December 22, the date of the last oyster harvest causing poisoning. -collective food infection (TIAC).
“No new meteorological event with significant rain has also been noted by Météo France” and “no malfunction in the sanitation network” of the basin has been recorded since December 22 by Siba (intercommunal union) and transmitted to state services, continues the prefecture.
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In order to “supervise” this reopening, the prefect Etienne Guyot announced “increase monitoring of the bacteriological quality of water and shellfish by ensuring weekly samples instead of monthly samples until the end of the winter".
Orders prohibiting the sale of oysters were issued at the end of December on several points of the French coast after cases of collective food poisoning (TIAC) linked to the consumption of shellfish contaminated with norovirus, responsible for gastroenteritis.
On Tuesday, the marketing of oysters was possible again in Calvados and Landes.
On the judicial level, an investigation was opened in Bordeaux after several complaints in the case of contaminated oysters from the Arcachon basin.
The Regional Shellfish Farming Committee (CRC) of Pays de la Loire also filed a complaint after the marketing bans in Vendée and Loire-Atlantique.
That of Normandy North Sea is also considering doing so.