« It is madness with us mosquitoes. I have bites all over my body, my son is the same. At the entrance to the Barrouil district, in Illats, Thursday, July 3, Zachary unpacks a trampoline for his 3 -year -old son. In its mailbox, the company specializing in the fight against Altopictus mosquitoes has just placed a flyer on which is written in red with a stamp which has drooled a little “Aboriginal case”.
The day before, the Regional Health Agency held a press conference to announce the detection in Illats of the first proven case of Aboriginal Chikungunya in New Aquitaine. A 5-year-old child living in this distant house pâté from the town center was infected without having left France. So at Zachary, since Wednesday, July 2, we have increased the doses of antimoustic products – “but it’s not good either” -, and we continue to use the usual arsenal: antimoustic sockets, candles, traps … hoping not to be infected in turn.
Nathalie discovered the information note announcing the Demoustication operation.
Guillaume Bonnaud/SO
“What can we do there since there are mosquitoes?” Lance, a defeatist, a neighboring neighbor to collect beans in her garden. “And then is that tigers with us”, the only vector species of the disease. “We avoid letting water drag, but look there,” she said, showing the ditch on the other side of the fence. There is flowing water. According to her, not so long ago, demoustication campaigns were carried out. “But since there is no more …” she finished her sentence with an upper shoulder. So she prefers to “monitor the symptoms, as with the covid”.
Surprise
A little further, Nathalie is caught off guard, in a bathrobe. She discovers the costed note of Altopicus and the ARS, slipped into her mailbox, which exceeds the slit: “Demoustication operation in your street. “I am a little surprised,” she admits, “but it is important that we are informed. “She assures that she will take precautions in the house,” by putting the fans for example “. “But hey, I know that there are to be cases of chikungunya everywhere in France,” she adds, fatalistic.
“What can we do there since there are mosquitoes?” »»
On its flyer, the ARS specifies that the demoustication operation will take place between 10 p.m. Friday, July 4 and 7 a.m. the next day. It is indicated that an insecticide based on Pyrethrioid or natural Pyrethrines, “the same active materials which are present in the domestic antimoustic products available in pharmacies”, will be sprayed from a car as well as during targeted interventions if necessary. “Treatment machines are very noisy,” warns the document. During the intervention, the inhabitants are therefore invited to enter their laundry, keep the animals away and stay inside, closed windows.
“No psychosis”
But before the curative, in the calm streets of this district of Illats, two employees of Altopictus, dressed in a yellow vest, prepare the operation. They put traps – cylinders with a valve, in which a product attracts mosquitoes and co2 – in order to estimate the population and to test in their laboratory the most effective antimoustic on these specimens. The operation is supposed to last more than twenty-four hours.
Altopictus also research at the illats school.
Guillaume Bonnaud/SO
A few kilometers away, in the center of Illats where the trucks parade, mayor Patricia Peigney awaits new directives of the ARS. From her office which overlooks the school courtyard where the child touched by Chikungunya is educated-“sometimes I rumble children if they do nonsense,” she laughs-she assures him, “there are no mosquitoes here”. As proof, the synthetic coating of the courtyard, which is not a mosquito nest. A conviction that has not prevented Altopictus employees from going around the establishment, in search of an index of the presence of the insect.
Patricia Peigney, the mayor of Illats, in front of the town hall.
Guillaume Bonnaud/SO
As a precaution, the parents received an email the day before, asking them to dress their children with long clothes. “I saw him too late,” says Johnny Poquet, whose daughter, in summer outfit, leaves school at the same time. “But the long sleeves by 30 ° C, it is not possible,” he judges anyway. Another mother who came to the meridian break ensures that she had slipped, as requested, from the antimoustic spray in the bag of her 5 -year -old son. She admits to being “a little afraid” to the idea that the virus circulates in the town, “but the village is great”. “There is no psychosis,” confirms Johnny Poquet, who prefers to wait more information.
” Health emergency ”
Altopictus deployed its expertise in Illats from Thursday, July 3, in particular around the district where the touched child lives, knowing that a tiger mosquito generally lives within a radius of 150 meters. At first, the team travels the neighborhood with the aim of eliminating the larval lodges and placing traps. If a demoustication operation is carried out, it will be carried out “at the end of the week or early next week,” said Delphine Binet, head of the company’s New Aquitaine agency, who judges that it is a question “of health emergency”.
