Viral disease alert: southern France

CelticRambler

French health officials have placed 18 départements in the southern half of the country (including Corsica) on high alert and warned summer visitors to take extra precautions against mosquito bites.

The tiger mosquito, carrier of chikungunya and dengue fever, is now endemic in the country and almost 50 cases of chikungunya infection have been reported this month* compared to 2 last year. Irish travellers and their GPs may not expect to be affected with a "Sub-saharan Africa" disease when they've gone no further than a campsite in Provence, but if you do become ill (or anyone you know does) after a trip to the areas maked in red, it would be worth bringing it to the attention of your GP. As always, prevention is better than cure ...



*To date, these are all French nationals who brought the disease back from French overseas territories and sought treatment. Because of the social demographic involved, the authorities are worried that not all cases are being reported, allowing the disease to become established in the local tiger mosquito population.

coylemj

It's worth repeating the qualifier that you buried at the bottom of your post - there has been no reported instance of someone being infected while in France and the same BTW applies to the mainland US where all reported instances were of people who had recently travelled to places like the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

No surprise therefore that neither the UK Foreign Office, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control nor the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) share your concern by which I mean that none of them raise this as a risk to the health of visitors to France.....

UK Foreign Office, no mention of any threat ...

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france/health

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control makes no mention of any threat from chikungunya in Europe, their last update was June 5th 2014....

http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/healthtopics/chikungunya_fever/pages/index.aspx

US CDC have one health alert for France which relates to a water-borne virus in a river in Corsica....

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/france

CelticRambler

coylemj wrote: »

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control makes no mention of any threat from chikungunya in Europe, their last update was June 5th 2014....

So a week before the French decided that this was beginning to look serious. I've been living here ten years and this is only the second time they've saturated the media with a "high alert" (the previous was for the swine flu). Chances are not many people check either the French news websites or disease surveillance organisations, but the at-risk areas are very popular with Irish holidaymakers. There's no harm in being aware of these things.

coylemj

CelticRambler wrote: »

So a week before the French decided that this was beginning to look serious. I've been living here ten years and this is only the second time they've saturated the media with a "high alert" (the previous was for the swine flu). Chances are not many people check either the French news websites or disease surveillance organisations, but the at-risk areas are very popular with Irish holidaymakers. There's no harm in being aware of these things.

'At risk' of what? Those areas in red on the map you posted are places where the tiger moth is 'endemic' but clearly not one of them has chikungunya because no human has been infected as a result of a mosquito bite received in France.

What you're hearing sounds like media hysteria. The irony of using the swine flu as a comparator seems to be lost on you.

CelticRambler

Just for interest, there'll be a (no doubt hysterical) press conference this afternoon to report details of four 'native' cases of chikungunya virus infection detected in France since the warning earlier this year.

coylemj

CelticRambler wrote: »

Just for interest, there'll be a (no doubt hysterical) press conference this afternoon to report details of four 'native' cases of chikungunya virus infection detected in France since the warning earlier this year.

In other hysterical news, last year 3,250 people were killed in road accidents in France.

Just illustrating that if you're really hell bent on scaring people off going to France, there's better stats. out there.

keithclancy

Like that legionaires disease outbreak a few years ago
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19472

Ebola, Tick Borne Encephalitis, Tuberculosis, Radon Poisoning ...

I'm more likely to be bitten by David Suarez :P