Bird flu was discovered in the French city outside wide quarantine, which is the failure of measures to contain the spread of the outbreak, which has forced many countries to ban French poultry products.

Since the end of November France, the largest agricultural producer in the European Union, registered 69 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in eight districts in the South-Western part of the country.

The last case of the outbreak was found in the Haute-Garonne, which is not included in the zone, where the government has set reinforced sanitary measures and restricted movement of poultry from mid-December, reported the Ministry of agriculture.

Despite the spread of the disease, number of outbreaks in France has slowed since the end of December, limited to only five early in the year.

Avian influenza cannot be transmitted to humans through food products. Some strains of the virus to infect humans previously, but the initial results showed that was found in France, the strains don't pose a threat to people, said the Minister of agriculture.

More than a dozen countries, including Japan, the world's largest importer of foie Gras, has imposed restrictions on French poultry products, live birds and hatching eggs following outbreaks of avian influenza, which were found mainly in ducks and chickens.

The leadership of the world organization of protection of animal health (OIE) reported that the cause of recent outbreaks in France remains unclear in contrast to previous outbreaks in 2007, which could be related with the wild swans.

There are suggestions that these strains did not spread from wild birds and farm lapatovich birds (ducks, geese), where the identification of these strains is much more complex due to the lack of clinical signs.

Last month, the representative of the OIE stated that the emergence of three different highly pathogenic strains in such a short time is unprecedented.

According to one hypothesis, the low-pathogenic strains has mutated into a highly pathogenic, which proves the need for all countries to monitor all types of strains of avian influenza, highly pathogenic not only.

Source: Thomson Reuters