New Delhi

Bird flu outbreak in southwest France "seems under control for now" said top government officials in the region on Thursday. The bird flu outbreak had required culling of hundreds of thousands of ducks in the region. 

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"If the situation stays the same, we should be able to fully control this outbreak -- though that doesn't mean that we won't have several more weeks of work in front of us," Fabienne Buccio, prefect for the Nouvelle-Aquitaine department, told a briefing in Bordeaux.

As of January 14, more than one million birds, mainly ducks had been culled to stop spread of devastating strain of bird flu.

Officials ordered the massive culls as well as strict travel restrictions and buffer zones around infected sites in the area, a bastion of France's lucrative foie gras industry.

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Buccio said the "drastic" measures had proved "appropriate and effective", though she warned that a new surge could not be excluded.

The H5N8 bird flu was first detected on Corsica island  in November 

Overall 348 infected flocks have been detected -- in the Landes department alone, outbreaks have been discovered at 272 sites out of around 850 in total.

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The government has promised compensation for poultry farmers who have already been hit by massive bird flu outbreaks in the winters of 2015-16 and 2016-17.

Besides France and Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain and Ireland have also reported bird flu outbreaks since the winter began.