Tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations in Luxembourg

Mosquitoes can spoil your nights during the summer season. However, But this year. Nevertheless, these unwanted insects are the source of a “super urgent” call for blood donations made by the Belgian Red Cross. Moreover, Blood pocket stocks collapsed in a few days. Moreover, to reach a “very critical” level, according to the news agency Belgian, Cited by several Belgian media.

Many blood donors have been refusing in recent weeks due to a trip made in a region. For example, where tiger mosquitoes are present in recent weeks. Meanwhile, This kind of insect is no longer satisfied with tropical regions. In addition, It has adapted to the European climate and spreads in particular in France. Consequently, He proliferated in particular in the department of Bas-Rhin, in the Strasbourg region. Nevertheless, A case of Chikungunya. Meanwhile, a case of tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations dengue have also been confirmed in the department this week by the Regional Health Agency, reports France 3 Grand Est. Therefore,

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Europe has recorded 27 cases of chikungunya for the moment in 2025, a new record for the continent. However, These blood-transmitted diseases can have a serious impact for fragile people, recalls the bloodstream blood service in Belgium.

At the flat country. However, the presence of these tiger mosquitoes is particularly impactful for the activities of the bloodstream blood service. For example, Anyone who has stayed. transit in a risk area must indeed wait minimum 28 days before being able to give blood, plasma or platelets. All travelers returning from the south of France. from Alsace (of which the department of Bas-Rhin is part), or who have traveled these regions tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations by car to reach Italy and Spain, are dismissed.

A call to the population was therefore made to mobilize the donors. Negative blood groups are “under extreme tension”. reports the agency Belgianand especially the negatives, highly requested by hospitals because they are universal donors.

Temporary prohibitions to give blood also in Luxembourg

In Luxembourg, the situation is less catastrophic than in Belgium. Contacted. the blood transfusion center (CTS) of the Luxembourg Red Cross explains that “our blood stocks are not in a critical situation.” At the start of the summer period. “they were at a satisfactory level, which allowed us to approach the holidays with a certain serenity.” However. the center indicates that the reserves have gradually dropped over the weeks, as every year at such a period, with a decrease “more particularly marked over the first two weeks of August.”

As in Belgium. traveling in a so -called “risk” area where the presence of potentially vectors of disease is noted “temporarily limits access to donation. Indeed, a night stay in a region concerned implies a ban on giving blood for the next 28 days. ”

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The blood transfusion. center indicates that “the number of these regions at risk has been growing in recent years.” The Bas-Rhin department is thus considered this year as a risk area, “when it was not in the past”. Recall that the presence of the tiger mosquito was detected for the first time in Luxembourg in 2022. in the town of Roeser.

The blood transfusion center of the Luxembourg Red Cross explains carefully monitoring its blood stock levels. But already anticipates difficulty in the start of the school tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations year. “Even if it is still difficult to specifically assess their impact on our reserves. we anticipate, at the start of the school year, an increase in prohibitions to the donation linked to the return of vacation in regions at risk, compared to previous years.”

No tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations refusal but screening in France

In France, the situation is somewhat different than in the two countries of the Benelux. The French Blood Establishment (EFS) – Organization which has the management of donations in centers. via mobile collections in the municipalities – has not communicated on a large scale on the consequences of the presence of the tiger mosquito in France. If vigilance is in order. there is no question, for the time being, of refusing donors as in Belgium or Luxembourg.

The method used is different: “France has made the choice to test all the donors in the regions concerned (having spent at least one night there. therefore not only a simple transit by car), whether for dengue, chikungunya or western Nile viruses (WNV), this in order to avoid adjournments and thus limit the loss of blood”, explains the EFS, Comma.

It tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations should not be understood “concerned regions” in the administrative sense of the term, but by much more reduced perimeters. “According to the viruses in question. it is specific and delimited areas, which can go from the village, from the city to the department. For the villages for example. this may be the entire locality or a 300-meter radius around the declared initial case, “specifies the EFS.

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To delimit the areas and carry out these screenings on the donors concerned, the EFS is based on epidemiological surveillance carried out by Public Health France (which is the equivalent of the Health Department in Luxembourg).

In its latest “Reinforced monitoring bulletin for arboviroses” which covers the period of 1^is May to August 20. 2025, Public Health France has indeed identified cases of dengue, chikungunya tigers mosquitoes complicate blood donations or Western Nile viruses, transmitted by the Tiger mosquito. There are many in the south of France. and there is also a small home in Alsace, in the outskirts of Strasbourg. “The EFS follows hour by hour each declaration of the indigenous cases,” says the French Blood Establishment.