Our country is currently going through the biggest avian flu epidemic ever known. More than 1,100 outbreaks have been detected in poultry farms. After affecting the Landes in December, the viruses are currently circulating in Vendée and Pays-de-la-Loire, with outbreaks also detected in Dordogne, Corrèze and Brittany.
It is wild birds that transmit the virus to farms in particular through their droppings. This year, explains Professor Jean-Luc Guérin, from the Toulouse Veterinary School, there are several aggravating factors: first, higher viral circulation than usual among migrants. These birds have therefore “ignited” more foci of infection in farms, in France and in Europe.
Then, among the strains in circulation this year, we find the H5N1 virus, which has the particularity of creating infections without symptoms at the start, for a week, therefore more difficult to detect even if the breeders and veterinary services are very reactive. Finally, it is confirmed that these avian influenza viruses can circulate not only by contact (between poultry, or by straw or material) but also move over several hundred meters via clouds of airborne dust, which makes them very transmissible between close farms. At this stage the only solution is therefore to eliminate the infected poultry. 10 million animals have already been slaughtered, three times more than last year. This is a terrible situation for breeders.
In the short term, this virus is not dangerous for humans, because it is an animal disease, but it is impossible to let this virus circulate in farms, without doing anything. Because in the long term, we cannot rule out the risk of mutation and transmission of a hybrid form, contagious for humans. Hence the drastic monitoring and culling measures. The question of vaccination of poultry is also under study. But due to the tests to be carried out, it is not possible before 2023, at best.