In Paris, they found a way to combat mosquitoes that carry dangerous diseases

For the first time in Paris, city officials have used fumigators to control tiger mosquitoes as tropical pests spread, spreading various dangerous diseases.

Parisian health authorities are treating the French capital for the first time in connection with the spread of tiger mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus and dengue in northeastern Europe, reports Agence France-Press.

Paris health authorities have for the first time fumigated areas of the French capital to eradicate disease-causing tiger mosquitoes, whose rapid spread across northern Europe is believed to have been accelerated by climate change.

Roads were closed and people were asked to stay at their homes in southeast Paris early Thursday morning while pest control contractors sprayed trees, green spaces and other mosquito breeding grounds with insecticide.

Scenes like this happen regularly in tropical cities and are becoming more common in Europe as the tiger mosquito, which can carry dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses, spreads around the world from its native Southeast Asia.

“This was done for the first time in Paris, but not for the first time in France,” Anne Souiris, deputy mayor of Paris, who is in charge of health policy, told BFM. “The south of France has been plagued by tiger mosquitoes for several years now.”

The capital’s regional health authority, Île-de-France, said the fumigation area was 150 meters from the home of a man in the capital’s 13th arrondissement who contracted dengue while traveling.

“These operations are carried out to reduce the risk of transmission of dengue fever after a case of the disease has been discovered,” the authorities said in a statement.

A second fumigation operation was scheduled Thursday night in the suburb of Colombes, northeast of central Paris, after a second person contracted dengue fever after returning from an overseas trip.

The city authorities are trying to drastically prevent the development of a chain of transmission in the Paris region, where an estimated 12 million people live.

If a tiger mosquito stings a person who brought the virus from abroad, then he becomes a carrier of the disease, Agence France-Press notes.

The tiger mosquito, also known as Aedes albopictus, arrived in southern Europe in the first decade of the 21st century and has been rapidly moving north ever since, settling in France, Germany and Switzerland.

Health experts say the insect species is thriving on the European continent in part because of climate change: warmer weather shortens the incubation period for its eggs, while winters are no longer cold enough to kill pests.

First discovered in France in 2004, according to the Ministry of Health, it is now present in 71 of the 96 departments on the mainland, even in areas near the northern English Channel.

“We are convinced that this risk will increase,” Marie-Claire Paty, head of vector-borne disease monitoring at public health organization Sante Publique, told AFP in April.