On the mosquito front, several news are coming to us and they are not good, but we have reason to hope. First of all, as a result of global warming, the tiger mosquito is spreading in France. It is the vector of three diseases: dengue fever, chikungunya, and also zika, which are logically likely to spread in France.
We recognize the tiger mosquito by two things. The first is the presence of alternating white and black bands on the abdomen, a bit like the zebra. The second is that he don’t go “bzzz” while flyingit comes straight at you and it stings, mainly during the day, and it stings a lot.
In some areas, the classic mosquitoes of our territory were more rampant in the summer, but today they sting longer and longer, in autumn and until winter. Firstly because the climate is warming, but also, and American researchers from the University of Ohio have just demonstrated this, because the light in our cities, that of our streetlamps, our shop windows, of our homes, prevents you from going into winter restwhich is called diapause.
They think it’s always summer. This omnipresent light promotes the reproduction of mosquitoes, especially since they are very suitable for our cities. Female mosquitoes need human blood for the development of their eggs and that is when they bite. This lengthening of the activity period of mosquitoes under the influence of light has been demonstrated in the laboratory, but remains to be confirmed by observing the tiger mosquito in a real urban environment.
How to protect yourself from it?
The only preventive advice, apart from all the mosquito repellents available, to prevent mosquitoes from breeding is to hunt all the stagnant water around your home: in a flower pot cup, a plastic toy that lying around in the garden, a clogged gutter. It is in these small puddles that mosquito eggs become larvaethen adult mosquitoes.
Science has solutions to offer us to fight mosquitoes in infested areas. There is no longer any question, as a few years ago, of spreading insecticides over entire territories. By doing this, we increases the risk of creating resistant mosquitoesand by massively eliminating mosquitoes, we put the entire food chain at risk, especially the birds and bats that feed on mosquitoes.
Sterilize the males
We have other solutions. A French startup is proposing to develop a technique that has proven itself in many countries. We breed male mosquitoes by the millions, they are sterilized by irradiation and they are released into the wild, where they will mate with females, sterile matings. Tested in Reunion, against the tiger mosquito, this technique has reduced the number of mosquitoes by 60%.
In France, the startup is targeting Occitanie, a region that suffers a lot from the tiger mosquito. His goal is to create a pilot production of sterile males next year, and if there are tangible results, downright a factory in 2028. Victims of the tiger mosquito can hope to see the end of the tunnel.
