Paris, Jan 5 (IANS): French authorities have detected an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) among vaccinated ducks at a farm in the western department of Vendee.

According to the department authorities, in order to contain the spread of the bird flu, 8,700 ducks, all vaccinated against HPAI as requested by the French government last year, will be killed, reports Xinhua news agency.

"To avoid any risk of spreading the virus to other farms, the prefect of Vendee has adopted a decree defining regulated protection zones and surveillance zones which are respectively set up within a radius of 3 and 10 km around the contaminated establishment," said an official statement.

Although the ducks were vaccinated against HPAI, the prefecture said that the vaccination does not completely eliminate the risk of infection in poultry if the virus is introduced into the farm.

The French Ministry of Agriculture said that a total of seven HPAI outbreaks have been confirmed in the country since November 27 last year.

France escalated last December its alert status for avian influenza from "moderate" to "high" nationwide after confirming the contamination of a turkey farm by HPAI.