[UPDATE] Paris Bedbug Outbreak: French Officials Sound Alarm, Call for Immediate Response to Crisis

Paris' bedbug outbreak is sparking widespread concern as there is less than a year before the start of the 2024 Olympics, which will be held in the iconic French capital, prompting calls from officials for an immediate response.

In most areas in the region, from hotel rooms to trains to movie theaters, bedbugs have crawled into every nook and cranny of one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. French officials struggle to cope with the issue, but experts have issued various recommendations to protect your health from these nasty critters.

Paris' Bedbug Outbreak

Full-grown versions of the insects are brown or reddish-brown and have an oval-shaped body roughly the size of an apple seed. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the young versions of bedbugs are much smaller, translucent, or whitish-yellow, and difficult to see. According to CBS News, these critters typically come out at night to feed on human blood.

Medical experts recommend that travelers thoroughly check the bed underneath it, behind the bed frame, on the sides of the mattress, and in between the mattress and the frame when they arrive at a hotel or a vacation rental.

French officials are also sounding the alarm regarding the issue and calling for an immediate response from the government to ensure that the bedbug outbreak does not spiral out of control. A top opposition lawmaker from the lower house of Parliament held up a small vial filled with bedbugs for her colleagues to see.

Mathilde Panot questioned Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne if they must wait for the latter's office to be infected before finally reacting to the issue. Borne urged Panot to observe a "bit of decency" and pledged that the French government would act resolutely against the bedbug infestation.

French President Emmanuel Macron's government has been forced to convene a flurry of top-level meetings this week to ensure that Paris will not turn into a city filled with bedbugs, according to the New York Times.

Addressing the Crisis

The government spokesman, Olivier Veran, said they must give the people a definitive answer. He noted that the exact scope of the issue remains unclear but argued that the government would announce new measures after a cabinet meeting scheduled on Friday.

French Transportation Minister Clement Beaune said they are taking the matter very seriously after meeting with transportation authorities on Wednesday. He stressed that buses, trains, and subways are regularly cleaned and taken out of circulation if suspected of any anomalies.

Earlier this year, the French government agency ANSES reported that roughly 11% of households in the country had bedbugs between 2017 and 2022 and that the infestations were not correlated to wealth.

An increase in travel and the bedbugs' growing resistance to insecticides are some factors that have led to a surge in infestations.

The first deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, announced that he had already asked Borne to organize a conference on the battle against the critters as he called it a public health issue, said NPR.