© PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFPFILE PHOTO: Chickens at a henhouse near Loon-Plage in France. France is one of several European countries now battling a highly contagious strain of bird flu.
France has culled 600,000 to 650,000 chickens, ducks and other poultry over the past month, officials said Friday, in a race to contain a bird flu virus threatening to become the fourth major outbreak in the country since 2015.
The Agriculture Ministry reported virus clusters
at 26 factory farms, mainly in the southwest — home to France's lucrative foie gras pate industry — as well as 15 cases in wild fowl and three at barnyards.
Several European countries are now battling a highly contagious flu strain, H5N1, just a year after a similar virus decimated flocks.
Belgium and Britain have announced outbreaks, while Czech veterinarians said Wednesday that 80,000 birds would be culled at a single farm where over 100,000 animals have died from the virus since last week.
Comment: Lest we forget how a number of these terrorists managed to coordinate and carry out their attacks despite being under surveillance by the intelligence agencies: