Since September 2023, there has been a special sight on the Paris Metro: locals prefer to stand up and ride the metro – even if there is an empty seat next to them. It's not a new fashion, it's just that people are afraid of running into bed bugs hiding in their seats.
Bed bugs are very good at peek-a-boo with humans, they can be found in high-speed trains, movie theaters, airports and hospital seats, and ironically, they have also made it to the glamorous Paris Fashion Week. The French took photos and uploaded them to social platforms, and panic spread across the country.
Soon, the blood-sucking creature captured Britain across the Channel. In October, The Guardian reported that London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the threat of bed bugs in the UK's public transport system was indeed a concern. There is a growing number of bed bugs in UK apartments, train stations and cinemas. Business enquiries from pest control companies in London have also started to surge. A video of a bed bug taken by a passenger on the Victoria Line has gone viral on social media and has been viewed by millions.
Passengers spot bed bugs on the Victoria Line.
This creature is now almost unknown to everyone in Europe. The bed bug crisis has even crossed the ocean to Asia, where in early November, Yonhap News Agency reported that 17 cities in South Korea were also infested with bed bugs. The number is small, but the government and the public are busy using various technological means to eliminate pests and try to eliminate uninvited guests in dormitories, homes and public spaces.
Japan across the sea is also nervous, and at the end of November, the Japan Times also reported on experts' warnings that Japan would fall sooner or later as tourists increased.
A small bed bug has brought an unimaginable public health crisis to all mankind.
Text | Monet
This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account "南风窗" (ID: SouthReviews), the original article was first published on December 25, 2023, and the original title was "Blood-sucking bugs swept across Europe, and South Korea has also begun", the original text has been deleted.
1
Make a big fuss about France
According to the French National Institute for Bed Bug Research and Control, this year's bed bug infestation is more serious than in previous years, and this round of peak began at the end of August to the beginning of September, many theaters, hospitals, prisons, subways and other places found bed bugs infested, many people were bitten quite severely, red and swollen.
The presence of bugs has affected the daily life of the French people.
Bed bugs on French trains.
Passengers are afraid of getting bed bugs, and everyone defaults to standing on the subway and train. Some KOLs and bloggers who attended Paris Fashion Week also claimed to have been attacked and bitten by bed bugs. Bed bugs infest hotel sheets, blankets, short-term rentals, and even restaurants. Images and videos uploaded by French people are easily searchable on social media.
Schools have also been implicated. At first, two schools in France were closed due to bed bugs, and then more than a dozen schools were closed, and the disinfection team entered to thoroughly disinfect the campus.
Bed bugs are also known as bed bugs, and they often burrow into various fabrics such as mattresses and clothes. It was originally a small, oval insect with a body length of less than 1 cm, usually reddish-brown in color, and was widely distributed all over the world.
Bed bugs feed on the blood of humans and other animals, and are a type of parasitic insect that can cause symptoms such as itching and allergies. Bed bugs that do not suck blood are flat, but become hypertrophic after sucking blood.
The most troublesome thing about bed bugs is that they rarely appear during the day, and they often only move to suck blood while people are sleeping, and hide back when they are full. Bed bugs are adaptable, very hungry, and can live for up to half a year even if they don't suck blood in winter, so they are tenacious. Bed bugs also attach themselves to the wheels of suitcases, and they are also very transmissible as tourists travel around the world.
In France, many families are starting to consciously clean up bed bugs, but the cost is not low – it costs hundreds of euros, and local insurance companies have developed comprehensive home insurance products, some of which cover the cost of bed bug infestation.
The ravages of bed bugs have aroused attention at the national level. On October 3, French parliamentarian Mathilde Pano presented a small bottle containing bed bugs to the National Assembly and asked the prime minister what the government was going to do to solve the crisis. ”
The Paris Olympics are just around the corner, and the French government has to be nervous. Less than a week after the question was raised, the government convened an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with the bed bug crisis. French Transport Minister Clément Beaune said a few days ago that the government will carry out a spring cleaning to ensure that the French public transport system is properly handled before the Olympics.
The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held in Paris, where there are about 4 million to 6 million brown rats, and Paris announced in the middle of this year that it will study ways to coexist with humans and rats, and next summer will be the season for white-threaded mosquitoes. In this regard, Le Parisien joked that "bed bugs, rats, and white line mosquitoes" would be the "detonating combination" to destroy the Olympics.
2
Bed bug scare
Bed bugs, which are highly mobile, have long affected areas outside France, and many European countries have broken out in the "bed bug crisis". The same phenomenon has spread to the United Kingdom, Greece and other places. On the London Underground line, local netizens took pictures of many "witnessing" incidents.
In an interview with PoliticsJOE on October 9, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said they had asked Paris officials for advice on how to avoid an outbreak of pests. Transport for London has also been promised to disinfect trains every night.
However, the price of dealing with bed bugs at home is expensive, which puts many people off.
Due to the insidious nature and extreme vitality of bed bugs, it is difficult for this species to be completely eradicated.
In contrast, prevention is even more important. Data released in September by Rentokil, a British pest control company, showed that the number of bed bugs in the UK increased by 65% from 2022 to 2023, which is linked to the recovery of tourism after the pandemic and the infection caused by hotel accommodation. In addition, more and more people are buying second-hand furniture from online platforms such as eBay and Facebook, and the risk of insect infection is increasing.
In fact, the spread of panic associated with bed bugs is also worth paying attention to. In the era of social media, the sense of distance that is rapidly narrowing, and the continuous fermentation of related pictures and topics have made many people panic.
On social networks, people posted pictures of being bitten by bed bugs, which caused more people to panic.
The Guardian reported on a 22-year-old student, Deira Peele, who said: "I was really, really scared...... Bed bugs tormented me for a day. ”
On his way to work, the 31-year-old Cervantes fears that there are bed bugs everywhere underground, and in order not to be bitten, he "does not sit in a public seat, but stands, or simply sits on the ground."
Bed bugs, which I don't know when they will appear, have become a dark cloud in the hearts of many people, which brings additional panic. Bezieu, the founder of the pest control website badbugs.fr, said some worried homeowners called, but they found that three-quarters of the problems they cited were not caused by bed bugs.
And Asia, which is far away, also seems to have to deal with a bed bug crisis and the spread of panic.
Recently, there have been a number of complaints about bed bugs in various parts of Korea. According to relevant departments of the South Korean government, as of November 6, more than 30 complaints about bed bugs had been received in 17 cities and provinces across the country. South Korean officials said the bugs may have been brought by tourists traveling to and from Europe.
The South Korean government has designated November 13 to December 8 as the key control period for bed bugs, during which local governments formulate control plans once a week and jointly take stock of the control work at government meetings, of which the Seoul Metropolitan Government urgently allocated 500 million won (about 2.74 million yuan) for this purpose.
In addition, the Korea Airport Corporation said it would set up a large number of bed bug traps inside the airport to prevent bed bugs from reaching passengers.
Interestingly, an online tool called "Bed Bug Map" has also emerged. Kang Jae-koo, a 29-year-old engineer and developer, said he was "very sensitive" to insects, so he slept under a mosquito net all year round.
Bed bug scares prompted him to set up a website that identifies areas in South Korea where bed bugs have been found, and the website is dominated by olive green, which Kang said was a move that he hoped visitors would have "peace of mind" when they browsed.
3
Coexistence?
Since November, news of bed bugs has also been reported in Hong Kong, China. According to data released by the pest control company under the Hong Kong Pest Control Practitioners Association, the number of public enquiries has soared by nearly 40% in recent days, reaching nearly 50 cases in one week in early November.
It is speculated that since South Korea is one of the popular tourist destinations for Hong Kong citizens, there is definitely a chance that bed bugs will be transmitted to Hong Kong by means of transportation such as airplanes.
The question that the public is more concerned about is whether Chinese mainland will be affected by this round of "bed bug attacks".
In fact, bed bugs have always existed in different provinces of China, and in the past "four pests" campaign, bed bugs were listed as one of the pests. Hu Yunfeng, chief physician of the Department of Dermatology of the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, said in an interview that there have always been bed bugs in Guangdong, but from the clinical reception situation in Guangzhou, there has been no concentrated and large-scale bitten patients for many years.
From the perspective of historical and geographical factors, this round of bed bug crisis first appeared in France, and there are certain "inevitability" that cannot be ignored.
French entomologist Behringer pointed out that in the past few decades, insecticides, including DDT, have been used to sanitize bed bugs and have worked very well; but later people realized the harm of DDT to the environment, so since the 70s of the last century, many developed countries have banned DDT in favor of milder insecticides.
This is particularly true in France, where the French government even recommends that pest control companies use non-chemical methods to sanitize bed bugs, using high temperature or freezing to physically remove bed bugs.
A mild insecticide that allows bed bugs to develop antibodies. The effect of physical removal is also greatly reduced. Bed bugs naturally grow unscrupulously.
Moreover, the operation of the French subway has always been criticized, its health and safety conditions are worrying, many lines are not air-conditioned, there are few ventilation vents in the subway, and the stuffy car environment breeds all kinds of insects.
France's overall public health system is not working smoothly, and in addition to bed bugs, rats are also a major hazard.
In March, strikes continued against Macron's policy of extending the retirement age, with sanitation workers in Paris striking continuously, three garbage treatment plants continuing to be paralyzed, and thousands of tons of garbage piled up on the streets.
Near the iconic sights of Paris – the Eiffel Tower, next to the Arc de Triomphe, garbage is also present. The most emblematic neighborhoods, such as the 5th, 6th, and 16th arrondissements, are full of black garbage bags as far as the eye can see.
The strike has sparked an unresolved human-mouse conflict, and the food waste scattered in Paris has become a haven for rats, who walk and forage for food together, and the number of haunts after night is "terrifying".
According to statistics, in Paris, the average person has 1.5-1.75 rats in their home, which makes Paris one of the most heavily infested cities in the world.
The health threat posed by rats is well known, and Paris spends around 1.5 million euros a year to eradicate rats, but these rodents continue to breed over the years.
Rats roaming the streets of France.
After years of failed rat eradication campaigns, in June this year, the government of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced at a city council meeting that people would try to live better with rats in the future. At the suggestion of the mayor, Deputy Mayor Souris decided to set up a committee dedicated to the issue of "coexistence between man and mouse" to find "coping strategies that are effective for the citizens of Paris without disrupting their lives too much", and said that public health experts are being invited to participate in the demonstration of the feasibility of "coexistence between humans and rats".
The problem of rodents, which is difficult to solve completely, is also very similar to the dilemma of bed bugs - the overall deterioration of the human health environment has naturally bred various pests, and new problems have become a political issue that has been left and right, and it is unresolved. All this is a vicious circle.
At a time when the romantic capital of Paris is gearing up for the 2024 Olympic Games, the eyes of the world are watching as Parisians solve this bed bug crisis.