Attention, new “Major health risk”. This is the warning that a parliamentary report published earlier this week about the proliferation of the tiger mosquito over the whole of France. Insects carrying viruses with formidable effects, such as dengue […], chikungunya or zika, which goes so far as to cause severe malformations of the fetus and not only high fevers or skin irritations.
In fact, some species are no longer content to prevail overseas. One of the most invasive, the “aedes albopictus”, thrives today in 58 of the 96 departments of metropolitan France while until 2004 absolutely none was concerned. Those in the south of the Loire, from Gironde to Haute-Savoie, are particularly so with populations exposed to more than 40%. As for the progression of this tiger mosquito to the north, where it is already very present in Aisne, Seine-et-Marne, as well as the two Alsatian departments, it would only be in its early stages. .
This irresistible spread finds its origins in the development of international trade. The China-Albania trade in used tires, one of its main artificial breeding sites, was the trigger. With the opening of Albania to the outside world, at the beginning of the 1980s, this insect spread throughout southern Europe, along the main roads, before climbing northwards via the Rhone corridor. .
Proof that this tiger mosquito feels more and more at home in France, the pathologies of which it is at the origin are no longer all imported. The colonies established in France “manufacture” them more and more. From two cases in 2010, the number of “indigenous transmissions” of chikungunya detected in the Var rose to 17 in 2017. The zika virus struck for the first time in France and this 12 times in the Var, the Rhône, the Alpes-Maritimes and the Gard.
Especially no pesticides
To avoid any epidemic danger, it will be necessary “Conceive of the fight against aedes in a radically different way from that against other mosquitoes”, warns the report of the special commission of inquiry of the National Assembly. The tiger mosquito, because it reproduces near homes, is difficult to eradicate and especially not with biocidal products. Spraying them would cause more problems than it solved.
“We must learn to live with aedes mosquitoes”, consider the deputies who talk about limiting the risks as much as possible. How? ‘Or’ What ? First, by developing regional prevention plans against the development of breeding sites that promote water stagnation. A device for absorbing landfills from used tires or used by farmers for silage is already at work and is giving results .
The commission of inquiry, which recommends entrusting the regional health agencies (ARS) with the management of these plans and that of curative treatments against aedes mosquitoes, also advocates the hard way. The agents delegated by the ARS would have “The power to enter private property, even inhabited” to act.
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