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Health: the premature return of pollen and allergies
Due to the particularly mild temperatures, many plants are letting their first buds appear. Nine departments are on red alert for pollen, Monday February 12. – (France 2)
Due to the particularly mild temperatures, many plants are letting their first buds appear. Nine departments are on red alert for pollen, Monday February 12.
In Alsace, hazelnut trees and alders are in flower. The first symptoms appear for people allergic to pollen. “My wife already feels it, her throat is scratchy and her eyes are watering”, assures a walker. For millions of French people, these pollens from hazel, alder or birch trees cause conjunctivitis, rhinitis or asthma.
Global warming
Alsace is placed in red on the allergy risk map, like the Mediterranean region. The beginning of February is very mild, with temperatures above seasonal norms, which encourages the trees to start flowering. “We tend to want to attribute this to the fact that we are experiencing increasingly mild winters, with warming temperatures which can be attributed to global warming”, explains Dr. Christophe Marcot, pneumo-allergist at the Strasbourg University Hospital (Bas-Rhin). In the South, it is cypress, mimosa and thuja pollens that cause allergies. With the mild weather forecast for the week, other regions should be affected.
