In late 2015, there were several outbreaks of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu in France, which escalated during 2016. This led to Algeria, China, Egypt, Japan, Morocco, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia banning French poultry exports, including foie gras, and France to initiate increased bio-security protocols which will cost an estimated 220 million euros. One of these measures was the halting of production in southwestern France from early April, 2016 for an anticipated period of three months to reduce the spread of the virus.