2023-05-03 11:22:11
“I mightn’t enjoy my terrace anymore! It was a real hell and they sting at all hours, even in the middle of the day and repeatedly, ”despairs from the bottom of his beautiful and green garden the Strasbourg resident Jeff Benignus. “They” are the fearsome tiger mosquitoes which already last summer ruined the lives of the inhabitants of Strasbourg, as in the district of Koenigshoffen where Jeff Benignus lives. Also, determined not to let things go and to take matters into their own hands, residents have formed the city’s first citizen collective to fight once morest tiger mosquitoes, called the Emperors, inspired by the names of the streets in the district.
Its members know it very well: now is the time to act. The larvae that are currently developing, at the beginning of May, will be the mosquitoes of tomorrow, the ones that will give them a hellish summer. So, the slightest trace of stagnant water, much sought following by this formidable mosquito, especially when it is in the shade, must be eliminated.
“Children bitten all over their legs”, “the impossibility of having an aperitif on their terrace”, “the obligation to remain caulked inside”… The testimonies are multiplying. The discomfort goes well beyond the simple Bzzzzz and the small bites of mosquitoes that we knew until then. The tiger is indeed a vector of diseases. Its proliferation even represents “a risk to public health, because it can transmit diseases such as dengue fever, chikungunya or the Zika virus”, insisted on Tuesday during a press briefing, the doctor and elected Alexandre Feltz, deputy to the City in charge of public health.
“A very urban mosquito”
And the citizen collective is not the only one to mobilize… Because the observation is clear: appeared regarding ten years ago in France from the PACA region, this scourge now affects all of France. And strongly since last year on all the 33 municipalities of the Eurometropolis, underlined Françoise Schaetzel, vice-president of the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg in charge of environmental health.
A rise to the north of France of the black and white striped mosquito, which “we owe to global warming” and to the milder temperatures experienced by the department, assures Françoise Schaetzel. “A very urban mosquito who loves city centers,” adds the elected official. “Now that it is there, we can no longer eliminate it, but we can limit its progression, monitor its development, by carrying out prevention, by raising awareness of the right actions among the inhabitants but also all the agents of the technical services to limit conditions favorable to their proliferation.
The hunting season for tiger mosquitoes is therefore open. An “integrated” collective fight, led by the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, the European Community of Alsace (CEA), the ARS Grand-Est and their armed wing in the field, the Union for the fight once morest mosquitoes 67 (SLM67). With the aim, initially, of the treatment of water drains, (understand the water sensors from the streets to the sewers), but also the awareness of Alsatians. A region where the inhabitants, note the communities but also the Emperor collective, are not always aware of the right things to do.
In Koenigshoffen, a territory that will serve as an experimental sector to assess the effectiveness of prevention and awareness-raising for the inhabitants and the agents of the city’s technical services, the collective has planned, in the coming days, to meet all his neighbours. Objective, to raise awareness, detect and eradicate places where mosquitoes lay eggs: such as water cups under flower pots, toys lying around in gardens, places where water stagnates, such as “collectors private water sources on which it is advisable to affix a mosquito net”, advises the SLM67. Or even the “plots under the terraces. All places where water can stagnate”. A “collective, integrated fight, if we want it to be effective”, recall the different communities. The price to pay now to spend a quiet summer without “getting eaten” on your terrace.
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