Demoustication operation after a first case detected in the Var – Liberation
The Regional Health Agency of Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur is on the alert. « Immediate measures are implemented to limit any risk of spread » In the commune of La Crau (Var), where she detected on Wednesday a first indigenous case of chikungunyathis virus transmitted by Tiger mosquito.
Since the beginning of the year, all cases of chikungunya identified in mainland France came from contamination outside the territory, Essentially in Reunion. The island has been struck for several months by an unprecedented epidemic for twenty years in this virus. Aboriginal cases, which refer to people who contracted the disease in France without having traveled in the contaminated area within fifteen days preceding the appearance of symptoms, are rather rare. Only one case had been detected in 2024 in metropolitan France, in Ile-de-France, none in 2023. Since 2010 Metropolitan France had experienced around thirty indigenous cases of this virus.
To avoid propagation, the ARS notably proceeded to a demustication in the affected municipality. The goal is to eliminate larval lodges and adult mosquitoes as quickly as possible « On the public highway and in the private gardens located around the case ». Similarly, a door investigation will be conducted in the accommodation in the district concerned to identify people who may have symptoms.
This year, the chikungunya epidemic, which results in fevers and joint pain, has mainly struck the island of the Indian Ocean, with 23 dead. In decline, it is estimated that 200,000 people have been contaminated on the island since January.
If the epidemic decreases frankly in Reunion, it still pursues Its dynamic in Mayottewhere she declared herself later. According to the latest assessment, 746 cases have been reported since the start of the year, but this figure is likely to be underestimated.
The warmer temperatures currently affecting France promote the activity of tiger mosquitoes, vectors of this virus but also those of dengue and zika. In 2024, there had also been 83 Aboriginal cases of DEGGE in mainland France, between the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Occitanie and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions.
Appeared in mainland France in 2004, the Tiger mosquito continues in any case its rapid expansion on the territory, and in particular north: early 2025 It was located in 81 departments, or 84 % of the metropolitan departments, according to new data disseminated in mid-May by Public Health France. Dengue and chikungunya could become endemic In Europe due to global warming but also urbanization and travel, all factors that promote the spread of the Tiger mosquito, according to a study published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health mid-May.
Faced with this progression, and to try to stop it, several thousand mosquitoes tigers made sterile by X-rays were released in mid-May in Brive-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze), as part of an experiment of unprecedented magnitude in mainland France. With this sterile insect technique (ITs), used for decades in the agricultural sector, the descendants of females, only responsible for bites, would gradually be neutralized and the populations should mechanically decrease.
