Avian flu continues to spread in Europe, with more than 950 farms infected to date, despite mass slaughter of poultry in an attempt to stem the epidemic, according to data compiled on Tuesday by AFP.
Read alsoAvian flu: the nightmare continues, more than a million additional animals must be slaughtered
According to figures as of January 23 by the French platform for epidemiological surveillance in animal health (ESA), 849 outbreaks of avian influenza have been recorded in farms in 32 European countries.
A total which rises to 959 homes by adding the latest assessment in France (281 homes), published Tuesday on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The figures published weekly by the ESA platform are changing rapidly, as the data are updated by the States concerned.
Statistics on the total number of slaughtered animals are not yet available.
Italy is the country with the highest number of outbreaks detected to date, 307, with 18 million poultry slaughtered since October, particularly in the Po Valley which is home to very large turkey and chicken farms.
The Italian agricultural confederation Confagricoltura, however, estimated that the epizootic was now under control in Italy, the country having recorded only ten new outbreaks since the beginning of the year.
Nearly 2.5 million slaughters
France, where the epizootic affected a first farm in November, announced last Thursday the slaughter of more than one million additional poultry, in an attempt to contain the progression of the epizootic which is raging in the south of the department. Landes, heart of foie gras country.
These new slaughters could bring to 2.5 million the total of birds slaughtered since the end of November on French territory.
Last season, that number stood at 3.5 million.
Third European country affected, on the corridor of migratory birds that follows the Danube, Hungary has 112 outbreaks of avian flu in breeding. The ESA platform also lists 78 in Poland, 56 in the United Kingdom, 53 in Germany, 14 in the Czech Republic and 12 in the Netherlands. Monday, in the Netherlands, nearly 200,000 chicks were killed near the municipalities of Akmaar and Willemstad.
According to the ESA's weekly report, 90% of the recorded cases of avian flu are linked to the H5N1 virus, which is by far the majority this year and more contagious than the virus last year.
Avian influenza has a seasonal character.
Transported by migrating birds from Asia, it usually begins to develop in October in Europe and continues until April.
But the epizootic is also wreaking havoc beyond European borders: nearly 500,000 poultry died or were slaughtered in Burkina Faso in mid-January, after the epidemic was detected in the country in December.
