It has become easier for the species to thrive in a warming Europe
Photo: iStock Paris health authorities sprayed insecticides August 31, 2023 in public spaces in the city’s southeast like gardens and trees, which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. This was done to check the spread of disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes found to be rapidly expanding in Europe. Experts have linked their proliferation to climate change.
This was the first fumigation exercise in France’s capital city. Roads were closed and people asked to stay home during the early hours of Thursday, according to a report in the international television network, France24.
Southern France, however, is not new to fumigation as tiger mosquitoes have been a menace in this region for some years now.
The focus of the fumigation operation was the area within a 150-metre radius from the home of a resident in the 13th district who was diagnosed with dengue following a foreign trip, noted ARS Ile-de-France, the regional health body in Paris. The aim is to reduce the risk of dengue transmission, it added.
The mosquito (Aedes albopictus) is an invasive species and is native to the tropical areas of Southeast Asia. It was first spotted in France in 2004. “In 2019, 58 departments out of the 96 metropolitan departments were colonised," Ramlati Ali, former member of the 1st constituency of Mayotte, had said in 2020.
Today, it is present in 71 departments on the mainland, “even in areas close to the northern Channel coast”, news outlet The Guardian wrote citing health ministry data.
The mosquito’s spread has also been quite rapid across the rest of Europe. Since the beginning of this century it has been expanding northward at great speed and is now found in France, Germany and Switzerland as well.
There have been sporadic cases of the diseases caused by the mosquito in the continent, but the number of these local infections have grown over the years. For instance, the number of locally caught cases of dengue in 2022 in the continent was as much as the cumulative recorded in the previous 11 years, news agency Reuters reported based on analysis of data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Climate change may have a role to play in this, experts suspect. This is because “warmer weather has shortened the incubation period for its eggs while winters are no longer cold enough to kill off the pests”, the story in France24 stated.
The European health agencies have recognised mosquito-borne diseases as a growing threat and have urged residents to be more proactive in reporting sightings of the mosquito.
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