Paris | France identified 282 outbreaks of avian influenza in its farms on Friday, the vast majority of which in the southwest known for its production of foie gras and where more than a million animals have already been slaughtered.
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In the southwest, 270 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza have been confirmed to date, the Ministry of Agriculture reported on its website.
Most of the outbreaks (239) are located in the Landes, the leading foie gras producing department, which has around 800 palmipeds (especially ducks) production farms.
The other outbreaks are located in the Gers (14), the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (15) and the Hautes-Pyrénées (two).
Outside the southwest, 12 outbreaks – including in pet stores and backyards – were identified in five departments: Haute-Corse (six), Vendée, in the west (three), Deux-Sèvres, in the west too, (one), Corse-du-Sud (one) and Yvelines, near Paris, (one). Nine cases have also been identified in wildlife.
To stem this epizootic, which has continued to progress since its first appearance on a farm in early December, the health authorities are engaged in a slaughter campaign targeting contaminated poultry but also, preventively, those located within a radius of 5 km around the outbreaks. .
According to the ministry, “1,116 million poultry (mainly ducks) were slaughtered in the southwest on the orders of the administration”.
For the Cifog foie gras interprofessional organization, these slaughterings do not go fast enough “in the face of the aggressiveness of the virus”.
In a recent opinion made public by the ANSES health agency, experts from “recall the crucial importance of compliance with biosecurity measures (in particular the effective containment of all birds in high-risk periods), of the drastic limitation of movements animals (…), movements of people and loans of equipment, in this region where the density and practices of poultry farming inevitably favor the spread of an infection, once it has been introduced ”.