The French Ministry of Agriculture indicated, today, Thursday, in a statement, that the first cases in France of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EMD), which affects deer and livestock, were discovered on farms in the Hautes-Pyrénées and Pyrénées-Atlantiques regions (southwest).
The Ministry explained in its press release that three farms were affected in these two provinces in the southwest, and that “measures to manage this disease are being taken by the Ministry’s interests in cooperation with professional organizations.”
Discovered in the United States in 1995, it mainly affects deer and livestock and is transmitted by the bite of midges. The ministry describes that it causes fever, weight loss, mouth lesions and breathing difficulties in animals and “results only in very low mortality.”
This viral disease was first discovered in Europe in the fall of 2022, in Sardinia and then in Sicily, the French National Health Security Agency (ANSES) noted in May.
Their arrival in Europe, according to ANSES, is the result of climate change, which allows the medium carriers to survive.
The zoonotic hemorrhagic disease is not transmitted to humans, and a vaccine is not yet available against the type of virus that was detected in Europe.
