Although no outbreak of bird flu has been detected in France for a month, certain prevention and surveillance devices deployed in poultry farms will be reduced, the government announced on Wednesday.
In Pays de la Loire, Brittany and Deux-Sèvres, regions particularly exposed to bird flu, monitoring of waterfowl (ducks, geese) “is reduced by halving the samples to be taken from these animals”, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement.
In the less exposed areas, called “free”, waterfowl “may be authorized to go out on a reduced route in the open air (…) if high outside temperature criteria are observed for several successive days”.
22 million birds slaughtered
Last November, the government decided to strengthen protection measures by confining free-ranging poultry throughout France in an attempt to stop the epizootic.
In 2021-2022, the epizootic caused the slaughter of 22 million poultry in France and caused disorder in the agricultural world.
France had observed an “endemicization” of the virus among local wildlife, while the virus arrived much earlier via migratory birds.
Since March 14, no cases have been identified on French farms, following the detection of a latest outbreak in Centre-Val-de-Loire.
The few cases detected in wildlife are “almost anecdotal,” ANSES said in early April.
The government, however, calls for vigilance and stresses that “if mortality in wildlife has fallen drastically in France, it remains significant in Europe.”
The temperatures, in particular, are still not high enough “to definitively eliminate the virus from the environment and the migrations of wild birds continue, which constitutes an additional risk factor”, underlines the press release.
During the 2022-2023 season, more than 300 outbreaks were detected on farms.
Source: BFM TV
