Mélanie Gomez, edited by Yanis Darras 12:18 p.m., January 23, 2024

Farmers remain mobilized in France.

Several dozen of them are continuing blockades on certain highways in the country, to denounce the stacking of standards and non-European competition.

Among the other demands: better coverage of veterinary costs for cow covid, MHE.

Taxes, standards, non-European competition... Farmers are shouting that they are fed up.

For several days, around a hundred farmers have been blocking the A64 motorway which links Toulouse to Biarritz.

Other blockages have also been reported, notably on the A7 south of Lyon or on the A62 near Agen. 

Among the farmers' demands: coverage of veterinary costs for what we call cow covid.

MHE, for epizootic hemorrhagic disease, mainly affects livestock.

Although it is a virus that is not transmitted to humans, no vaccine exists at the moment. 

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A very low mortality rate

In the South West, several cases have been reported recently.

“Originally, it is a disease which was identified in 1955 in the United States, which is transmitted by midges. So, the midges will bite ruminants or deer” and transmit the disease, explains on the microphone from Europe 1, Stéphane Zientara, veterinarian and director of the animal health laboratory at ANSES.

“The mortality rate is very low, less than 1%,” he nevertheless emphasizes.

But, "you have animals which for a few days or a few weeks are very tired, do not feed and therefore lose weight and no longer produce milk for example. In fact, the problems posed by this disease are is that the animals are sick and therefore produce much less. Especially since there are symptomatic treatments. This represents veterinary costs" for farmers, he continues.

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The State takes its hand in the portfolio

"Secondly, infected areas are subject to movement restrictions. So when an animal has to go from an infected area to a non-infected area, especially to be exported for example to countries like Italy, it is necessary that it must be subjected to tests, notably PCR. All this has a cost.

So if you take the costs linked to veterinary fees and the costs in cases of animal exchange, that represents a significant budget,” concludes Stéphane Zientara. 

Faced with requests from breeders, the Minister of Agriculture announced that the State will reimburse 80% of veterinary care linked to MHE and will compensate up to 80% for dead animals from next month.