PARIS – Officials from the World’s Poultry Congress announced on April 20 that the annual event is postponed until Aug. 8-12, 2021, in Paris due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The French branch of the World’s Poultry Science Association (WPSA) and the organizing committee said its highest priority is the health and well-being of congress participants. 

“The organizing and scientific committees have continued working hard on the preparation of the conference,” the WPSA’s French branch said. “We are grateful to all members of the scientific committee, for their contribution to set up a rich scientific program. We hope that the already selected 50 invited speakers will respond positively to join in 2021. We are also grateful to the numerous scientists who evaluated the abstracts. We will communicate the results with their comments by the end of April 2020, thus permitting to modify acceptable abstracts or amend accepted ones with new results.”

WPSA will extend the deadline for regular registration fees until Dec. 31, 2020, so authors can confirm attendance to the meeting in August 2021. The group will also reopen the site for submission of new abstracts, from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020. 

Any current registrations will remain valid for 2021. Awards for the youth programs or the young scientist programs will retain their fellowship. Regular updates will occur on the event’s website through 2020. 

Closing out its announcement, the World’s Poultry Congress expressed its appreciation of other branches across Europe and the world for assisting in the reorganization of the event. 

“We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the immense solidarity of all those within the poultry community who supported this decision,” WPSA concluded. “We are grateful to the European Federation of WPSA branches, which accepted to reconsider the planning of all international WPSA meetings in Europe. The prompt support of the Italian branch engaged in the preparation of the ESPN 2021 [European Symposium on Poultry Nutrition], was particularly helpful to move forward. Special thanks go to our sponsors and partners who fully understood the situation and supported this decision, accompanying us to make the World’s Poultry Congress in 2021 an event not be missed.”