2023-09-24 05:00:00
Faced with the scourge of bedbugs, places that welcome the public all day long are particularly vulnerable. Public transport, cinemas, hospitals… Several establishments detailed to BFMTV.com what means they were putting in place to avoid being invaded by these pests which threaten their customers or patients.
“A little creature crawls into your clothes and it’s over.” Bed bugs, on the rise in France since the 1990s, are no longer confined to your mattresses and bed linen. Public transport, hotels, cinemas, hospitals… No place open to the public is really safe from this little parasite.
In recent weeks, several Parisian cinemas have been highlighted on social networks, while Internet users report having been bitten or infested within them. In Lyon or Boulogne-sur-Mer, hospital services even had to close for several days due to an infestation of bedbugs.
These little creatures, the size of an apple seed, are carried in clothing and luggage and generally slip into the edges of beds in order to feed on human blood at night. Although they are not dangerous and do not transmit diseases, they cause significant nuisances such as sleep disorders, anxiety or social isolation.
Customary cinemas due to the fact
The problem is not new, according to cinemas, which insist that they did not wait for this new outbreak of cases to tackle the problem. The UGC Ciné Cité des Halles, for example, explains to RTL that its cinemas are “treated every week” in a preventive manner. “And as soon as there is a report, we process once more,” we specify.
Even when there is no suspicion of an invasion, sniffer dogs pass through the theaters of the independent cinema “Les 7 Parnassiens” in the 14th arrondissement of Paris three to four times a year. “This is the most effective way to detect their presence,” according to the room’s operations director.
MK2 cinemas, too, have companies specializing in bed bug detection and eradication throughout the year. And they regularly call on canine detection brigades to ensure the health of a place.
“The dog(s) guide the company to determine if we are facing an infestation,” confides an employee of the group, on condition of anonymity. “They smell eggs and live bugs.” If no bedbugs are detected, a ‘certificate of non-infestation’ is then issued by the company.
In the case of suspicion, as may have been the case in a Parisian room at the end of 2018, decontamination companies can resort to enthermal treatment, i.e. by raising the temperature of the room or building to more than 60 °C for several hours. Smoke bombs or dry steam generators at 180°C – such as the Cimex Eradicator – are also used more locally, on the seats and in the corners of the rooms concerned.
Traps, insecticides… The challenge of public transport
But these pests are not confined to cinemas and public transport, which is crowded with people, is particularly vulnerable to this little parasite. For example, bedbugs were discovered in Marseille metro trains last July, despite the decontamination operations organized each year by the RTM. These are carried out in the spring for two days, “on all materials” and “with products which may prove toxic”.
“As a general rule, this is enough to limit the development of these pests,” explained Denis Costopoulo, deputy general director of RTM in charge of operations, this summer, interviewed by BFM Marseille.
At the SNCF, we assure you that things are under control, and that no bedbugs have ever been reported on the TGV lines. As for the Intercités fleet and night trains, “the number of cases reported” within them has been in sharp decline or almost zero for several years, in particular due to the purge and renovation of the cars initiated in 2020 and completed at the end of 2020. summer 2023.
Furthermore, a “treatment framework” to follow in the event of suspicion of pests (cockroaches, ants, bedbugs, etc.) has been designed for TGVs and Intercités. So in addition to cleaning the cars daily, a preventive anti-pest treatment is applied by the teams every two months maximum.
In the event of an isolated report, specific traps are placed throughout the train, insecticide is sprayed in all the cars and diatom powder (a non-toxic biocide) or anti-pest gel is applied. if necessary in areas of humidity or areas not accessible to customers.
This device is then renewed every 15 days for a minimum of one month, with a check of the train every week. In the event that a greater presence of pests is reported, the train is then taken out of commercial service in order to undergo intensive daily treatments until the pests disappear (with dismantling of a certain number of elements inside the cars if necessary). This can last between 3 to 5 days, before the train is monitored and checked every week during the month following its return to commercial service.
“Hospitals armed to manage this risk”
In hospitals, it is not uncommon for departments or rooms to be invaded by bedbugs. “We are called 8 to 12 times a year for bedbugs,” notes Delphine Grau, medical head of the hygienist unit at Montpellier hospital, who considers that the number of reported cases is “largely underestimated” .
However, hospitals are generally “better equipped” to fight once morest parasites than other places open to the public, according to Jonathan Debeauve, director of communications for the Besançon hospital center. And for good reason, they are at least equipped with a bacteriology and hygiene department, or even a medical entomology unit as is the case in Nice, within the Parasitology-Mycology department.
“We are used to managing this type of risk, like lice, cockroaches or galls,” explains Jonathan Debeauve. “We have specialists who master the subject and today in most hospitals, everything is done to avoid the transmission of nosocomial infections.”
“You will notice, for example, that mattresses, beds, benches and armchairs are no longer made of fabric, but almost everything is now laminated to prevent bacteria or parasites from lodging there,” he notes once more.
For Dr Delphine Grau, the difficulty at the hospital lies in “rapid identification” of bedbugs. “Their detection is extremely difficult because these little creatures only come out at night and hide during the day. Only small blood stains on the bedding or skin lesions on the patient can alert us and allow us to put in place appropriate measures to prevent spread.
At the Nice hospital center, medical and paramedical staff are thus made aware of and trained on the problem, and precise action procedures have been drawn up by the Hygiene Department of the hospital center in order to react correctly to the slightest suspicion. A photo of the suspected insect is systematically sent to the Entomology unit for identification, as well as the insect itself in a waterproof box.
A binding procedure for the hospital
And if it is confirmed that it is indeed a bedbug, actions without insecticide are mainly proposed (cleaning, heat, freezing, etc.) to get rid of them, and a pest control company is contacted within 12 hours. To avoid transmission in the establishment, caregivers must protect their clothing with single-use long-sleeved gowns, gloves and shoe covers, and the handling of patient linen is scrupulous.
In the event of suspicion, Delphine Grau, from the Montpellier hospital, also recommends isolating the patient in a single room as far as possible, even if she recognizes that this often proves “complicated”; and above all to limit your travel.
His linen is then treated according to a very strict procedure: it is isolated and double-packed in bags, sprinkled with an anti-parasitic product which is left to act for a few hours. Then the sheets and pillowcases go in a dedicated and identified bag to the laundry, where they will be washed in the washing machine at a temperature of 60°C to eradicate bedbugs at all their stages of development.
Finally, advice on home restoration is given to the patient’s loved ones in preparation for their discharge. “It is absolutely necessary that the home be treated, very often by a specialized company. This is the basis, but it is not always obvious to everyone.”
Chemical control is particularly restrictive within hospital establishments, given the tensions that the sector encounters in terms of places. “To avoid any resistance from bedbugs, it is recommended that these specialized companies intervene at least twice in the room a few weeks apart to be sure that the larvae emerging from the eggs do not re-hatch and that there is total effectiveness” . Which means that the infected space(s) must be closed for the same amount of time.
Between 2017 and 2022, 11% of French households would have been infested by these pests, according to an Ipsos survey carried out last July for a working group set up by the National Food and Environmental Safety Agency. and work (Anses).
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