An outbreak of avian flu "highly pathogenic" was detected in a duck farm in the Landes, we learned Wednesday from the prefecture, a week after other cases in the Gers, raising fears of a resumption of the epizootic.

This new case, detected in Bordères-et-Lamensans, about twenty kilometers southeast of Mont-de-Marsan, led the prefect of Landes to adopt sanitary measures in a regulated perimeter of sixty municipalities.

In a statement, the prefecture also announced the slaughter of the 8,600 ducks present on the farm concerned.

After several months of calm, this case of avian influenza comes a few days after the detection of other outbreaks, last week, in the neighboring department of Gers, while the France had downgraded at the end of April the risk level of avian influenza from "high" to "moderate".

Six outbreaks confirmed by the Gers Chamber of Agriculture

The Gers Chamber of Agriculture reported on Wednesday "six confirmed outbreaks" in the west of this department bordering the Landes, where a regulated perimeter has also been set up.

"The farms located in the 3 km of these outbreaks have been depopulated," says the Chamber of Agriculture, which also counts five "strong clinical suspicions".

"The France confirmed, from May 4, the presence of the virus in several farms in the Southwest," confirms, for its part, the Ministry of Agriculture on its website. "Management measures are in place to clean up outbreaks that have been revealed and maintain a high level of control of the risk associated with this disease."

For the Confédération paysanne and Modef, it is "again" an "explosive episode of bird flu". These two farmers' unions, defenders of a model of free-range farming, criticize in a statement the "mistakes" of the ministry, such as the confinement of poultry in the areas concerned and the preventive slaughter of thousands of animals.

Between November 2022 and April 2023, the France had been placed at a "high" level of risk of avian influenza, before a sharp slowdown in the number of outbreaks in the spring. Between mid-March and the end of April, no outbreaks had been identified in French farms.

In 2021-2022, the epizootic led to the slaughter of 22 million poultry in France.

  • Health
  • Avian influenza
  • Poultry
  • epidemic
  • New Aquitaine
  • Aquitaine
  • Contamination