Two thousand ducks died from the disease out of a total of 5000 raised on the farm, in the town of Almayrac in the Tarn department. The rest of the ducks will now be culled and a 3 km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone have been set up around the farm.

The same H5N8 virus was detected for the first time in France on November 27 on wild ducks in Pas-de-Calais.

The French authorities told the public in a statement that the outbreak is not related to the outbreaks last winter in the south west of France. However, the outbreak does prevent France from declaring itself free from avian flu, which was planned to take place on the 3 December. The new H5N8 outbreak took place on the 2 December.

Tarn is also situation in France's south-western fois gras producing region, which was hit hard by the previous outbreaks and the subsequent restrictions.

Rules in place from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) allow regionalisation of countries, which means exports of poultry products should be able to continue from other regions.

Further Reading

You can visit the avian flu page by clicking here.