HASwhen a bill was tabled, on October 24, to strengthen the means of combating the proliferation of bedbugs and amendments in favor of support for infested people were submitted as part of the bill finance law for 2024, it is clear that the media excitement will have allowed this subject to become a priority in the space of a few weeks.
However, if the bedbug represents a major reputational and communication issue for France before the 2024 Olympic Games (OG), the mosquito should be just as much, if not more so.
It would indeed have been much more urgent to finally tackle the threat posed by mosquitoes on our territory. But its place in the collective imagination is very different from that of the bedbug. Have we forgotten that the mosquito is the deadliest animal in the world? Nearly 800,000 people die from it each year on average.
For the subject to be taken head-on, should we associate with the mosquito images of swollen limbs, bloody eyes and crushing fevers so that it is no longer a second-rate subject and that diseases that it carries (dengue, chikungunya, Zika, West Nile, etc.) are considered a real health threat?
Not to mention the economic costs induced by the absenteeism that these diseases cause in the world of work, as we can see in the regions of the world most affected by malaria.
A first indigenous case in Ile-de-France
Even if we see some upsurges and the issues are known, the public authorities are not sufficiently tackling this growing problem. We are facing a virtual blind spot in public action.
And yet every year, we are surprised by the great return of mosquitoes in mainland France as temperatures rise. More serious, in overseas departments and regions, it never disappears! So much so that in Reunion Island, for example, dengue fever is rife with epidemic outbreaks.
Even in France, the mosquito has moved up a gear: thirty-six indigenous cases of dengue fever, therefore due to contamination by a local mosquito, were detected in mainland France between 1er May and October 20 according to the French Public Health agency.
In one year, France recorded more indigenous cases than in the last ten years! Usually, they are observed in the South, where the climate is a priori more favorable to mosquitoes. But the confirmation by the regional health agency of a first indigenous case in Ile-de-France, in October, has reshuffled the cards: with global warming, the epidemic threat is national.
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