The crawl space will be pronounced in the Landes department. In order to stop the H5N8 bird flu virus, the government will have the remaining animals slaughtered.
The ax has fallen. The preventive slaughter of palmipeds has been in effect for several weeks, without effect on the avian flu epizootic. It is ultimately the crawl space that will be pronounced in the Landes. The Minister of Agriculture Stéphane Le Foll confirmed this on February 21 at the microphone of France Bleu Gascogne. The 600,000 ducks still alive in the department will be killed in order to stop the virus.
10 cases per day
Since the first cases, last November, the H5N8 virus has continued to grow. France now has 306 domestic households, mostly in the Southwest, and 28 outbreaks in wildlife. In the areas at risk, the preventive killing of palmipeds has been pronounced.
According to the Minister of Agriculture, this measure limited the epizootic in the part located to the east of the Landes. “There’s only this western part left that needs to be dealt with,” he said. It will be necessary to go quickly in the slaughter of the ducks to obtain a stabilization of the area. “In fact, the department clearly dominates the others: it lists 151 outbreaks against 94 in the Gers, where slaughtering has been shown to be more effective. According to the Landes Chamber of Agriculture, 10 outbreaks are detected every day.
Aid at the end of March
This sentence strongly resembles the beginning of a crawl space. Stéphane Le Foll has indeed confirmed that after the slaughter of the farms, a period of no activity must be respected. It will allow the shelters to be cleaned according to strict biosecurity rules. “Only this strategy is available today,” says the Minister of Agriculture. There is no vaccine. “
However, a positive element emerges from this epizootic: biosecurity has improved in the farms. According to Stéphane Le Foll, efforts remain to be made on the transport of animals. This would also be the origin of this outbreak. An investigation was launched by the Paris public health prosecutor’s office.
The shortfall is considerable for the leading department producing foie gras. Especially since the crawl space is pronounced for the second year in a row. The breeders will receive aid from the State. They should arrive at the end of March, according to the Minister of Agriculture.
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