Highly pathogenic bird flu was diagnosed on Boxing Day, Tuesday, December 26, at a turkey farm in Alveringem in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The affected turkey farm is located in the surveillance zone, which was established last week following an outbreak on a laying hen farm in Warhem, northern France. The approximately 25,000 meat turkeys at the company in Alveringem were culled yesterday.
Due to an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus on a laying hen farm in Warhem, Northern France, about 4 km from the Belgian border, a surveillance zone was established last Thursday, December 21, which is partly located in West Flanders. The zone includes about fifteen poultry farms. The usual measures of a 10 km zone apply in the zone. Derogations for the removal of poultry meat and hatching eggs are possible from next Monday, December 25. The card can be found in the instructions Appendix.
The usual ones were introduced around the outbreak in Alveringem protection zone (radius 3 km) in surveillance zone (radius 10 km) demarcated. These include almost the entire Warhem surveillance zone and partly fall on France. The Warhem surveillance zone will therefore be merged with the new Alveringem zones. There are approximately 40 poultry farms in these new zones.
Waivers
There is also a very minimal overlap with the Diksmuide surveillance zone, but without any poultry farms being involved. This also means that the proposed timing for the Diksmuide zones will be maintained for the time being.
In the new zone, exemptions for the removal of poultry meat and hatching eggs will come into effect from Friday 29/12. For the companies that were already in the Warhem zone, the derogations that were activated yesterday for poultry meat and hatching eggs continue to apply.
The contamination shows once again that the virus pressure in our country, and in particular in the Westhoek, is very high and that we have now ended up in the same unfavorable circumstances as almost a year ago. Strict compliance with all prevention rules and biosafety is therefore still extremely important, reports the Flemish advocate Landsbond Poultry.
Bird flu among wild birds
Last week, the first new cases of highly pathogenic H5 were identified in wild birds in Belgium, namely in Antwerp and Middelkerke. This indicates that there is probably more bird flu circulating in wild birds in large parts of Belgium. The number of cases is expected to increase in the coming weeks, reports the National Poultry Association.
2023-12-27 08:22:06
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