`France Announces Measures to Contain Xylella Fastidiosa Outbreak in Corsica - Olive Oil Times

France Announces Measures to Contain Xylella Fastidiosa Outbreak in Corsica

By Isabel Putinja
Aug. 18, 2015 15:58 UTC

Following a con­firmed infec­tion of the deadly bac­terium Xylella Fastidiosa (Xf) on the French island of Corsica, the French min­istry of agri­cul­ture has announced mea­sures to con­tain its spread.
See Also:Complete Coverage of the Xylella Fastidiosa Outbreak
The bac­terium was pos­i­tively iden­ti­fied on July 22 in Myrtle-leaf Milkwort plants in Propiano, South Corsica. The local author­i­ties took imme­di­ate action by destroy­ing the infected plants as well as any other plants within 10 meters sus­cep­ti­ble to the bac­terium. Vegetation within a kilo­me­ter radius of the infected zone were also closely exam­ined for con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

Meanwhile, the French min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, Stéphane Le Foll, announced that extra funds would be made avail­able to con­tain the out­break and put pre­ven­tive mea­sures in place, and an ad hoc expert mis­sion would be soon deployed to Corsica. The min­is­ter also rec­om­mended lim­it­ing the num­ber of plants which are not sub­ject to the ban on the entry of plants to Corsica.

A July 29 press release by the French min­istry of agri­cul­ture announced that dur­ing a trip to Corsica, Le Foll had decided to imme­di­ately dou­ble the num­ber of staff at the Corsica office of the Regional Federation of Defense Against Harmful Organisms (Fédération Régionale de Défense con­tre les Organismes Nuisibles – Fredon) for a period of three months, and make emer­gency funds avail­able for an inves­ti­ga­tion into the ori­gin of the infec­tion. This will be fol­lowed by an expert mis­sion to Corsica with the objec­tives to pro­vide sup­port to the epi­demi­o­log­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion into the ori­gin of the infec­tion, deter­mine whether the insects known to be vec­tors of Xf are con­t­a­m­i­nated with the bac­terium, develop a bet­ter under­stand­ing of poten­tial vec­tors, and estab­lish whether cer­tain risk fac­tors should be taken into account with a view to pre­vent the fur­ther spread of the bac­terium.



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