To avoid contamination, health authorities have restricted blood donation in southeastern France, where 22 people have already contracted the Nile virus.
In the south-east of France, blood donation is now restricted due to the presence of the West Nile virus, better known as Nile fever. More specifically, individuals who have slept at least one night in the Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Pyrénées-Orientales or Monaco “cannot donate for 28 days”, decreed the French Blood Establishment, this Monday, October 22.
Fatal illness
According to the regional health agency, at least 22 people have contracted the West Nile virus in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, including 19 in the Alpes-Maritimes, these figures already dating from the beginning of October. “The circulation of the West Nile virus is earlier and more important in 2018 than in previous years in Europe”, indicates the agency. Four people had to be hospitalized because of a neuroinvasive form of the virus.
In most cases, West Nile virus infection is asymptomatic. However, in 2% of cases, patients may show a flu-like syndrome (fever, headache, muscle pain) sometimes accompanied by a skin rash. The affliction can then develop into a fatal disease, becoming West Nile meningitis. However, only one in ten infected people develop this serious form.
The West Nile virus is transmitted by the Culex mosquito, contaminated by contact with infected birds. It does not pass between humans except through transfusion of infected blood – hence the public health measure described above.
Sleep under a mosquito net
Like the tiger mosquito, the Culex mosquito appreciates warm, stagnant water and bites mainly at night, but sometimes even during the day. This is why the ARS recommends “emptying and storing small containers under cover, covering water tanks with a cloth or mosquito net”, “wearing loose, covering clothing”, “using repellents, recommended by your pharmacist, on clothing and on uncovered areas of skin”. Finally, “for sensitive people (newborns, pregnant women, immunocompromised people)”, it is advisable to sleep under a mosquito net.
In France, the West Nile virus appeared for the first time in metropolitan France in 1962 in the Camargue, then again in 2000. Three years later, seven people had been affected in the Var. The disease then reappeared in Nîmes in October 2015 in a patient who, quickly taken care of, escaped without complications. Then, nothing for two years, before a new case was diagnosed in Nice last year. At present, the person is in good health.
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