It is a disease that spreads more and more and makes more and more cases: the Chikungunya virus. The departments abroad are the most affected. At the meeting, about 54,340 cases have been confirmed since the beginning of the year, killing 28, it has the Regional Health Agency (ARS). In Mayotte, also in the epidemic phase, 1112 confirmed cases of Chikungunya were recorded for the same period, according to Ars.
France is not saved. At the beginning of summer, the virus circulated at a level never seen so early in the year. Public Health France reports that on July 15, they identified in France, twelve indigenous transmission houses, which means that pollution took place in Continental France. This represents a total of 30 cases.
How is this disease transmitted? What are the symptoms? Is it dangerous? And why does it? BFMTV.com Answer 5 questions about the Chikungunya virus.
• What transmission?
Chikungunya is a viral disease that is transmitted to humans by the bite of two mosquitoes of the genus Aedes: Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, both recognizable for their black and white stripes, hence the common name of Mosquito Tiger.
As explained by the Ministry of Labor, Health, Solidarity and families, the Tiger mosquito is from Asia, but appeared in Metropolitan France in 2004. Since then, it has been established in 81 departments, “once installed in a commune or department, it is practically impossible to get rid of it.”
The infection is performed when a mosquito not billed it to an infected person with the virus, the Pasteur Institute details. Therefore, the mosquito ingests the virus, which will be replicated so that it will be transmitted to another person by a new bite. Unlike the common mosquito, the tiger mosquito is rather chosen the day (mainly in the morning and night) and is silent, As the desire reminds us.
Only female mosquitoes reproduce. “After the bite, they are looking for stagnant water points in their surroundings to put their eggs,” said the prefecture of île-de-France. The eggs hung on the dry walls of containers that probably be filled with water, while the larvae can survive several months in their eggs. And once in contact with water, the larvae develop. In a week, they become adults.
The reproduction of the Tiger mosquito is exponential: a female lies on an average of five times during her life, every 12 days, of the order of 150 eggs per placement. O 750 eggs per female, estimates Ars Auverne-Rhône-Alpes.
• What symptoms?
The incubation time of the disease is two to ten days. The infection leads to joint damage (dolls, fingers, ankles, feet, knees and more rare hips or shoulders) is often very disabling, the Pasteur Institute continues.
The word Chikungunya also means in the Makonde language, a language spoken in southeast Tanzania, “that walks forward”, evoking the posture of patients due to the pain in the joints.
In addition to the joints, the infection causes a headache accompanied by fever, significant muscle pain, an eruption in the trunk and limbs, conjunctivitis or an inflammation of one or more cervical lymph nodes, adds the research institute. Some patients have also brought bleeding from gums or nose.
Inserm explains that we are talking about Chikungunya’s acute phase until the 21st after the start of the symptoms, the phase after Aiguë up to 90 days, then chronic beyond the third month. But the reasons for the persistence of symptoms are still unknown.
• What complications and consequences?
“In some cases, serious neurological forms may occur, particularly meningencephalitis and peripheral nerves,” says the Pasteur Institute. These complications were found mainly in the elderly or whose immune system weakened, as well as in the newborns infected in the uterus at the same time as their mother.
But the research institute specifies that the disease is rarely fatal. The majority of patients who died were also affected by other diseases. In addition, once a person has contracted the Chikungunya virus and after healing, “they develop sustainable immunity against future infections,” said the Ars of the meeting.
“Therefore, the virus cannot contract for the second time.”
However, the infection can evolve towards a chronic phase, “marked by persistent joint pain,” adds the insertm. Two studies carried out after the epidemics of 2005–2006 and 2013 have shown that more than half of the patients are not completely cured one to two years after the start of the infection, with a degraded quality of life.
This chronic phase of the disease is observed in particular in people over 40, those who have a history of joint diseases or who have presented a high fever for more than seven days. The risk of chronicization is also more frequent in women.
• What treatment?
There is no specific treatment, only symptomatic treatments (analgesics and anti -inflammatory medications can be offered to the sick. But the remission of the symptoms is generally quite fast with a disappearance in a few days of fever and eruptions.
A vaccine, Ixchiq, was also authorized in 2024. But after serious undesirable effects in people over 80 years with comorbidities, the health authorities decided last spring to review their vaccination recommendations, limiting the vaccine to people under 65 years.
However, the European drug agency considered in mid -July that the vaccine could well be administered in people over 65, with precautions for use.
• What prevention?
The Pasteur Institute recommends using long clothes, apply skin repellent, but also wear insecticides. But the most important thing to limit the propagation of the tiger mosquito is to eliminate the stagnant water points where the larvae are developed.
Because these mosquitoes move little by themselves and evolve within a perimeter of 150 meters around their birthplace. “If you notice a tiger mosquito at home, it is because it was born next: on a balcony of your building, in your garden or in your neighbor,” says Ars Auverne-Rhône-Alpes.
Among these water tanks: cup and pot of flowers, used tires, children’s toy, rainwater recovery, garden furniture, tarp, wheelbarrow or ashtray … Sometimes very small objects are enough: the tiger mosquito does not necessarily need much water, “the equivalent to a cover can sometimes be sufficient for your larvae to develop.”
This Ars remembers the fight against Tigres mosquitoes, “it’s all year.” “Your eggs can survive and wait all winter during sunny days to return.” Therefore, it recommends covering rainwater recuperators, cleaning equipment, such as gutters or evacuation grilles to facilitate good water flow and empty the containers after each rain and after a lack of several days of the house. “Without water = without tiger mosquito”.
Source: BFM TV
