Sharjah 24 – AFP: The French government said Thursday that it would cull more than one million birds in the coming weeks to fight a surging outbreak of avian flu on poultry farms.
All ducks, chickens and turkeys must be culled in some 226 municipalities in France's southwestern Landes, Gers and Pyrenees Atlantiques departments, totalling up to 1.3 million birds.
"It will take us about three weeks to clear the whole area," the agriculture ministry said.
By wiping out the populations where the virus is spreading, officials hope to shorten the outbreak and prevent it from reaching other poultry-raising regions.
Over one million birds have already been killed in attempts to smother the avian flu outbreak that began in late November.
Several European countries are now battling a highly contagious flu strain, H5N1, just a year after a similar virus decimated flocks.
Four bird flu outbreaks have hit France and especially the southwest since 2015, with 3.5 million poultry killed last winter.
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