How to recognize a tiger mosquito bite? These symptoms that should alert you

It’s been a reality for a little while. But, beautiful days oblige, in this mid-June 2025, many French people begin to achieve it: the Tiger mosquito colonized the entire metropolitan territory.

And with him, his share of problems. Because the insect is known to transmit a lot of tropical diseases particularly dangerous for humans. You can cite dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever or even zika. Potentially fatal diseases, which recently touched two people in Hérault and Var.

How to recognize a tiger mosquito bite?

“His bite is generally more painful and itch longer than those of other mosquitoes. THE button will be bigger And will therefore be more, ”we can read on the site of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

In other words, we can roughly summarize by saying that the tiger mosquito spikes stronger than the classic mosquito.

In the event of a bite, do not have immediate concern: the button will naturally leave after a few days, and the itching will disappear with him.

That said, you have to be particularly vigilant about tropical diseases.

From the dead from Chikungunya to Reunion

Among these tropical diseases, we often talk about chikungunyaasymptomatic in 10 to 40 % of cases according to Public Health France (SPF). The incubation lasts from 3 to 7 days, and symptoms and complications may be serious. Pell-mell, we find fever, chills, headaches, nausea, vomiting, joint and muscular pain and, inconsistently, rashes.

Intense joint pain should also be added to the ends (wrists, ankles, phalanges).

Besides, “the word chikungunya comes from an African dialect of Tanzania where this virus was discovered in the late 1950s and which would mean” to be curved “due to muscle and joint pain caused by infection”, explains to actu.fr Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist and director of the Global Health Institute of the University of Geneva, also the author of the book Tell me!.

Chikungunya (like dengue) can, in the worst cases, lead to hemorrhages that can “put the vital prognosis into play”. And there is no specific treatment to date. Dated May 28, 2025, 15 deaths were confirmed as being linked to chikungunya, on Reunion Island.

But also dengue and zika

The dengueit, “is asymptomatic in 50 to 90 % of cases (percentage variable according to epidemics)”, explains SPF. “For the 50 to 10 % of infected people who have symptoms, incubation lasts on average 4 to 7 days”.

We find the same symptoms and complications as for chikungunya, without intense joint pain at the ends.

Finally, the virus Zika causes symptoms in 50 to 80 % of affected people, as explained by Public Public Santé France. The latter are rashes, fever, or even conjunctivitis, in addition to muscle and joint pain, headache and retro-orbital pain.

“These signs last a few days and then disappear spontaneously,” notes SPF. The latter can also be transmitted by sex.

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