, 63 non-imported infections were listed in mainland France in October. A record. BASTIEN DOUDAINE/Hans Lucas via AFP
EXPERT’S OPINION – These diseases, still recently invisible in our latitudes, now represent a very real risk in mainland France and throughout Europe, explains the Pr Pierre Flowers.
Bilharzia, leishmaniasis, chikungunya, zika, dengue… It is now impossible to act as if these tropical diseases should remain the sad prerogative of developing countries. The spread of some of them outside their original homes “in the South” is today a real concern for health authorities in the North, who are increasingly faced with the emergence of indigenous cases. in patients who have not traveled overseas.
It was in the early 2000s that the World Health Organization (WHO) began to warn of the need to fight against around twenty tropical diseases that are unknown in our latitudes but frequent in the poorest states near the Equator. , especially in Africa: digestive verminosis, schistosomiasis, filariasis, echinococcosis, cysticercosis, leishmaniasis… In total, they affect nearly 1.6 billion people and are sources of misery and exclusion, especially for women. But they are of no interest to research…
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