France’s programme to vaccinate all ducks against avian influenza (HPAI or bird flu) had contributed to a significant lowering of bird flu outbreaks in French poultry flocks, according to an official assessment of the vaccination success.
The French programme began with the compulsory vaccination of ducks on commercial farms at the start of the northern winter in October 2023, and resulted in 95% of the country’s ducks being vaccinated against bird flu. WATTPoultry reported that the conclusions have been published in an official report by the French government’s agency for food, environmental and occupational health and safety, ANSES.
Ducklings received a first dose of vaccine at 10 days of age, and a second around 20 days later. At any one time, 40-45% of the duck population was fully protected by vaccination, the ANSES model revealed. Full protection was defined as birds that had received both doses of vaccine, and its efficacy had not started to decline.
It was noted that protection diminished after 10 weeks of age, so a third dose was given to those birds kept for a longer period in areas of high infection risk.
Another finding was that suspending vaccination during the summer months in order to reduce costs resulted in an increased risk of bird flu infection in ducks in the following autumn and winter.
“France’s HPAI vaccination program was resumed in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. In those years, the number of outbreaks in France’s poultry flocks was significantly lower than the previous year. This was likely due to the duck vaccination program as well as less virus pressure from wild birds,” the report said.
In the 2025/26 season, bird flu has again been transmitted from wild birds to poultry flocks in France.
“This reinforces the importance of implementing biosecurity measures to prevent the virus from entering farms, as well as ongoing monitoring of the virus circulation,” ANSES said.
