France reports case of bird flu in Dordogne

France has reported its first case of high pathogenic avian influenza since 2007, with the H5N1 strain confirmed in a flock of 32 backyard hens in the Dordogne in the south-west of the country.

Several countries including Japan, Egypt and Hong Kong banned French poultry following past outbreaks of H5N1.

The Agriculture Ministry has asked the services to activate a national intervention emergency plan following European and global rules.

Producers are concerned that the outbreak has occurred just ahead of the festive season, with about half of all annual sales of foie gras made in the month of December.

Measures of protection and management against bird flu are to be applied and the ministry has stated that the speed of the implementation of management measures is a prerequisite to limit the spread and consequences of disease, especially for export.

H5N1 was last reported in the European Union in March, with cases in Bulgaria and Romania.

It said a monitoring zone of up to 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) has been established around the site.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said that this year, South Korea imported from France one ton of duck meat, 13 tons of duck liver, some 840-thousand chicks and around 40-thousand ducklings. The extremely pathogenic H5N1 bird flu first infected humans in 1997 during a poultry outbreak in Hong Kong.

France’s largest poultry producer LDC LDCP.PA dismissed the impact for the sector.