A new outbreak of avian flu has been detected “in a domestic poultry farm” in La Poterie-Mathieu (Eure), according to a prefectural decree published on Saturday, around ten days after the lowering of the national risk level.
“Highly pathogenic”, this outbreak of avian influenza, detected on Friday, requires “immediate eradication measures” of the poultry concerned, according to the decree posted online on Saturday on the prefecture website.
The Eure prefecture has also placed eight nearby municipalities in a “protection zone” and 46 others in a “surveillance zone”, confirming information from the regional daily. West France. These two areas form a “regulated zone” where poultry “must be sheltered”. “Only people essential to the running of the farm” are authorized to enter the establishments where the poultry are located, in order “to limit the risk of spreading the disease”, according to the decree.
A high risk
Since August, France was placed at “high” risk and the lowering, on December 17, of this level of risk made it possible to open up “more favorable prospects for the French poultry farming sectors”.
Twenty-six European countries have detected the presence of avian influenza viruses on their territory since August 1according to a bulletin from the French animal health epidemiological surveillance platform.
The virus is still circulating among wild birds in Europe, particularly in migration corridors, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. A first serious case of avian flu has also been detected in humans in the United States, American health authorities announced on Wednesday.
The epizootic – the equivalent of an epidemic in animals -, which is raging from the Americas to Australia, affected France from 2015 to 2017 then almost continuously since the end of 2020. The country has euthanized tens of millions of poultry in recent years. The economic losses amount to billions of Euros.
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