France has started vaccinating ducks against bird flu, to try and stem the virus that killed millions of birds around the world, a move that prompted the United States to impose trade restrictions on French poultry imports.
France has been among the countries worst affected by an unprecedented global spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, that has disrupted supply of poultry meat and eggs and sent prices rocketing in many parts of the globe in the past years.
The first shots were given this morning to ducks on a farm in the Landes, a region in southwestern France, in the presence of French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau.
CIFOG said the vaccination plan, is a world first with a goal to protect all farmed birds and should put an end to the preventive slaughter of animals, which no one wants to live with anymore.
Over 60 million ducks will have to be vaccinated over a year for a total cost of 96 million euros of which 85% will be financed by the state.
