In the spring of 2020, when France was experiencing its first confinement, 43 inhabitants of Ain suffered not from Covid-19, but from meningitis, meningo-encephalitis and flu-like symptoms linked to contamination by the virus. tick-borne encephalitis (TBEV).
Whereas this virus is usually transmitted by tick bite, these 43 people had in fact contracted TBEV by consuming raw milk goat cheese. This is revealed by the National Health Security Agency (Anses), which investigated and reveals the results of its investigations. The agency specifies that it was then the first food-borne infection known in France.
“In April 2020, the first confinement encouraged the consumption of local products”, recalls Gaëlle Gonzalez, project manager in the virology unit of ANSES’s animal health laboratory, in a press release (Source 1). “The fact that the cases are grouped has facilitated the identification of the origin of the contamination”.
The investigation, carried out by several laboratories, made it possible to go back to the source and to note that all the cheeses involved came from the same farm. The cheeses have been withdrawn from the market, and the goats confined. A quarter of these showed antibodies against TEBV, proof of past contamination, and the virus was detected in the milk of three of them. At the same time, ticks carrying the virus were found in the undergrowth…