The health authorities have taken preventive measures since mid-October, causing restrictions of blood donation to avoid infecting recipients with the virus of the West Nile, also known as west Nile virus, transmitted by mosquitoes, reports Le Parisien, Sunday, October 21. “All the people who had stayed at least one night in the Alpes-Maritimes, the Var, the Bouches-du-Rhône, the Vaucluse and the Eastern Pyrenees, but also Monaco, can’t make donation for 28 days,” says the Etablissement français du sang (EFS).
The disease is transmitted by the mosquito Culex issue at the moment in the south of France. According to the public Health agency of France, ” twenty cases have been detected in region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’azur, mainly in the Alpes-Maritimes from Nice to le Cannet. “An infected person has developed a neurological disease. The west Nile virus may give symptoms resembling the flu, and in a minority of cases, complications such as meningitis and encephalitis. The disease can be deadly.
Viruses endemic in several countries in Europe
This virus is transmitted by the mosquito, itself contaminated by birds. “Once the virus is present in our blood, the risk of transmission via blood transfusion is very real, even if it is low “, said professor François Bricaire, infectious diseases physician at the parisian hospital Pitié-Salpétrière (AP-HP), interviewed by Le Parisien. The precautionary principle taken by the DFT is, for him, ” quite justified “.
This virus is endemic in several countries in Europe, and its range increases. Its name comes from the district of West Nile, in Uganda, where it was first isolated in 1937 in a woman with a high fever. The restrictions of the EFS are maintained until the end of the month of November, the date on which the mosquito season is considered to be complete, says The Parisian.
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