© Agence France-Presse Health authorities in Paris fumigated areas of the French capital for the first time on Thursday to kill disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes whose rapid advance through northern Europe is thought to have been accelerated by climate change. Roads were closed and people asked to stay in their homes in southeast Paris during the early hours of Thursday as pest control contractors sprayed insecticide in trees, green spaces and other mosquito-breeding areas. Such scenes […]
Tag: mosquitoes
Super-resistant mosquitoes in Asia pose growing threat: study
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Mosquitoes that transmit dengue and other viruses have evolved growing resistance to insecticides in parts of Asia, and novel ways to control them are desperately needed, new research warns. Health authorities commonly fog mosquito-infested areas with clouds of insecticide, and resistance has long been a concern, but the scale of the problem was not well understood. Japanese scientist Shinji Kasai and his team examined mosquitos from several countries in Asia as well […]
Microplastics may enter foodchain through mosquitoes
PARIS, France (AFP) — Mosquito larvae have been observed ingesting microplastics that can be passed up the food chain, researchers said Wednesday, potentially uncovering a new way that the polluting particles could damage the environment. Microplastics — tiny plastic shards broken down from man-made products such as synthetic clothing, car tyres and contact lenses — litter much of the world’s oceans. Hard to spot and harder to collect, they can seriously harm marine wildlife […]
Factbox: Why the Zika virus is causing alarm
(REUTERS HEALTH) Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus behind a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has spread to many countries in the Americas. The following are some questions and answers about the virus and current outbreak: How do people become infected? Zika is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female mosquitoes, primarily the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same type that spreads dengue, chikungunya […]
What you should know about the Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika virus
Looking into the dengue virus, chikungunya and Zika virus, videographics by AFP TV DENGUE, chikungunya and Zika come from the same family of viruses. They are transmitted by the ‘Aedes’ mosquito, Aedes aegypti and the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus. Ahedes aegypti is mainly found in the tropics, while the Asian tiger mosquito is found in both tropical and temperate climates, invading the Americas and even Europe. The three illnesses have several symptoms in […]
Chikungunya spreads to new areas
(World Health Organization) — It’s like dengue, but more painful. It gives you high fever, severe headaches, and leaves you with severe joint pain, sometimes for years. It is chikungunya, a relatively new virus first detected in Africa in 1952, on the border of Mozambique and Tanzania. It spread to cities in Africa and Asia, and now there are cyclical outbreaks in nearly 40 countries. It arrived in the Americas in December 2013, and is […]





