THE GUARDIAN: Parisian health authorities treat French capital for the first time as Zika and dengue-carrying tiger mosquitoes advance through northeastern Europe
Health authorities in Paris have fumigated areas of the French capital for the first time to kill disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes whose rapid advance through northern Europe is thought to have been accelerated by climate change.
Roads were closed and people asked to stay in their homes in southeast Paris during the early hours of Thursday as pest control contractors sprayed insecticide in trees, green spaces and other mosquito-breeding areas.
Such scenes are a regular occurrence in tropical cities and becoming increasingly common in Europe as the tiger mosquito, which can carry the dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses, spreads from its native southeast Asia.
“It was a first in Paris, but it’s not the first in France,” deputy Paris mayor Anne Souyris, who is in charge of health policy, told BFM television. “The south of France has been affected by tiger mosquitoes for some years.” » | Agence France-Presse | Friday, September 1, 2023
