The Ministry of Agriculture, which carried out checks in the Dordogne department as part of the national emergency health intervention plan, launched after the discovery of a case of H5N1 flu on November 24, announced that two new cases of bird flu had been detected in the department.
When the national emergency health intervention plan is put in place, protection zones of 3 km are set up around the infected farm as well as surveillance zones for other farms within a perimeter of 10 km. Samples were thus taken from various farms in Dordogne, despite the absence of mortalities or clinical signs. This is what made it possible to discover these two new foci of avian flu, in duck farms.
First cases in France since 2007
“In order to protect and limit the spread of the disease to other farms of susceptible species, the services of the Ministry of Agriculture are currently slaughtering all the animals of the farms concerned and have decided to put in place of biosecurity measures throughout the department “, precise the ministry press release.
Last week, the ministerial authorities also recalled that avian flu “is not transmissible to humans through the consumption of meat, eggs, foie gras and more generally of any food product “. But these cases of H5N1 influenza declared in one of the departments producing foie gras in France may nevertheless have an influence on New Years Eve menus.
These are the first cases of avian influenza identified in France since 2007. The National Agency for Food Safety and Security (ANSES) is currently carrying out an assessment of the dangerousness for humans of the strain discovered in Dordogne .
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