Bird flu continues to be of concern. An outbreak was discovered in the Aisne, the prefecture announced Wednesday evening, calling for everyone’s vigilance, a few days after the detection of a case in the Ardennes.
“A clinical suspicion has just been confirmed today by the national reference laboratory in a farmyard located in the town of Aubenton”, wrote the prefecture of Aisne in a press release. She further recalls that “like several European countries, France is facing a new episode of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)”, commonly known as avian flu, and that “the disease has been circulating for several weeks in Belgium and the rest of the world. Luxembourg ”.
No ban on the movement of poultry
“The origin of the contamination is the purchase of poultry on a Belgian market”, from a “professional who sells his birds on various markets in Belgium (Florenville, Arlon, Chimay, Tournai, Bastogne, Charleroi, Anderlecht)” , said the press release, calling on anyone who has bought a bird in one of these markets since early August to consult their veterinarian if the animal shows symptoms of avian flu.
The detection of this outbreak, originally identified, does not result in a ban on the movement of poultry, but the prefecture asks for “everyone’s vigilance” in order to “detect any suspicion of disease at the first signs”. Friday, the level of risk was raised from “negligible” to “moderate”, on “the whole of the metropolitan territory”, after the detection of a first case in the farmyard of a private individual in the Ardennes, near the Belgian border. However, this case did not call into question the status which had just been recovered by France, on September 2, as an “influenza-free country”, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.