Adedokun Waliyu 
France has confirmed bird flu outbreaks on two poultry farms, just days after being officially declared free of the virus, the agriculture ministry said.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, has spread across Europe in a seasonal wave linked to migrating birds, though the impact has been less severe than in the United States, where flock losses have led to record egg prices and the virus has been transmitted to cattle and humans.
French authorities confirmed the new cases on two farms in the northwestern region of Normandy on Dec. 27 and Dec. 28, the ministry said in a statement late on Monday.
“As a direct consequence of these outbreaks, France loses its HPAI-free status that it had just regained on Dec. 15,” it said.
Disease-free status for bird flu means no farm outbreaks have been reported for at least a month. The classification can allow trade restrictions from importing countries to be lifted.
France has credited a vaccination programme, launched a year ago, for curbing the spread of bird flu compared with previous seasons. The plan has focused on farm ducks, notably reared for foie gras pate and seen as particularly vulnerable to bird flu.
The country nonetheless remains on high alert for the virus given continued risks of contamination from migrating birds, the ministry said.
In a separate notification to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the French authorities detailed that the outbreaks occurred on farms with 25,000 and 540 poultry birds, respectively, with the entire flocks culled as a safety measure.
Elsewhere in Europe, Germany detected a new bird flu case on a poultry farm in Bavaria, with the 16,000-strong flock also slaughtered, according to a notification to WOAH published on Monday.
