Paris: France has detected bird flu at a duck farm in the Vendée region in the west of the country, the agriculture ministry said on its website, the first such outbreak since vaccination against the virus began in France last year.
Vendée province said highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, was detected on Tuesday at a farm housing 8,700 ducks in the city of Notre Dame de Riès. It said that all of them had been vaccinated.
Bird flu, which is spread by migratory wild birds and can then be transmitted between farms, has devastated flocks around the world in recent years, disrupting supplies, raising food prices and increasing human transmission. Concern about the risk has increased.
To protect itself, France launched a vaccination campaign early last October, targeting only ducks because they can easily spread the virus without showing symptoms.
Vaccination is not meant to completely protect birds from the disease, but to limit its spread and thus avoid large-scale preventable deaths. This comes in addition to standard biosecurity and control measures.
France is the first major exporter to vaccinate poultry against bird flu, facing trade barriers from countries that fear the virus could spread unnoticed.
France last month raised the bird flu risk level from ‘medium’ to ‘high’ after new cases of the disease were reported, prompting poultry farms to keep birds indoors to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus. Was forced to.
Seven bird flu outbreaks have been detected in France since Nov. 27, five of them in turkeys, one in egg-laying hens and one in ducks, the agriculture ministry said on its website.
