“Once it is installed, it cannot leave,” explains a specialist

The Normandy regional health agency said on Wednesday that the insect was first observed in the region in 2023.

The tiger mosquito is present in Normandy, the only region so far spared, the Regional Health Agency confirmed on Wednesday. “Once he’s installed, he can’t leave.”, explains on franceinfo Thursday March 21, Anna-Bella Failloux, mosquitoologist and professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute. No French metropolitan region is now spared from the tiger mosquito.

The increasingly significant presence of this mosquito in the territory is explained by our own movements, “the mosquito moves with us, because the eggs are carried by people or their vehicles”. Eggs which are from elsewhere “capable of withstanding low winter temperatures”, even in regions historically colder than in its original settlement areas. The eggs will therefore “remain dormant” while waiting for the right temperature, temperatures which are “more and more favorable”, with global warming. Problem, the tiger mosquito is “almost everywhere and, once it’s installed, it can’t leave”.

Reduce tiger mosquito breeding grounds

The risk with this mosquito is that it can carry diseases such as dengue, chikungunya or Zika, potentially fatal viruses. The presence of these viruses is already documented, since numerous indigenous cases are recorded in France each year, “the peak being in 2022, with 66 cases”. An indigenous case means that a person contracts one of these infections, even though they have not stayed in a region where these viruses are circulating epidemically.

To reduce the presence of the tiger mosquito, Professor Anna-Bella Failloux advises “reduce the breeding grounds of these mosquitoes” as “small puddles of water, tires left outside, clogged gutters, etc.”. An effective method because “when we reduce this type of breeding ground, we reduce the problems linked to this mosquito by at least 50%”. Indeed, out of 67 species of mosquito in France, it is one of the only ones able to settle in “small containers of water, there are almost no mosquitoes that can colonize this type of lodging”.