Mosquitoes under surveillance
Monitoring mosquitoes helps protect human health.
For the past year, the EMa-Tigre project (Emergence of Vector-Borne Diseases Linked to the Tiger Mosquito) has been monitoring mosquitoes in France. Its goal is to map the risk of arbovirus transmission, particularly those spread by Aedes albopictus, in the context of environmental changes.
In this video, Rachel Bellone, a researcher at the Institut Pasteur, presents the project’s three main areas of focus:
- Identifying viruses circulating in mosquitoes collected in mainland France.
- Testing the Tiger mosquito’s vector competence, understanding which viruses it can transmit to humans.
- Modeling the risk of arbovirus spread based on climatic variables and geographic regions.
In 2025, tens of thousands of mosquitoes were collected at 95 sites across 12 regions. These detections had a tangible impact: for the first time, an entomological alert guided the decisions of French health authorities to safeguard blood and organ donations after the virus was detected in Paris, even before the first confirmed human cases.
In 2026, surveillance resumed from May to October to track the evolution of the viruses and refine predictive models. The EMa-Tigre project demonstrates that monitoring mosquitoes protects human health.
(video in french, english subtitles available translated by AI)