False, this photo does not show a mosquito bite causing a deadly infection

Published on : 07/06/2021 – 11:59

Circulating on Facebook for a fortnight with the same caption, this photo has been shared several thousand times in many many publications, up to 500,000 times in this one. On his knee, we can see an area with inflammation, circled in black felt. It’s always the same story: a young girl, Deanna, was reportedly taken to the emergency room the day after a “new kind of mosquito bite”, which allegedly caused her a serious infection.

One detail is particularly striking, and explains the virality of the photo: “If they had waited a little longer, the affection would have reached his blood and caused his death …” (sic). Phrases like “Take 3 seconds to share, you can save a life …” or “Urgent, to circulate” accompany the text.

A story from 2017, in the United States, not in France

But contrary to what the shares and comments suggest, this photo is not recent, as explained 20 Minutes fact-checking team. After a quick reverse image search (you can find the explanation here), we come across a Facebook post in English as well as a item published in the United States in 2017, with the photo of the leg, and telling the same story as the French publications.

A search on Facebook led to the first release of this photo: March 16, 2017, Sonia giudenian, an American mother, wanted to warn her relatives in a post on the social network after what had happened to her daughter following a mosquito bite. She tells in English the same story as that of French publications, with one detail: at no time does she speak of a fatal risk if her daughter’s infection had passed into her blood.

In English, she explains: “So I took her to the emergency room where we found out there was a new type of mosquito bite that is causing an infection. If we had waited any longer it would have been in her blood. . “

The publication by Sonia Giudenian four years ago, less sensational than her recent French echoes, has been shared more than three million times. She aimed to alert her friends and other mothers to what had happened to her, so that in the future, mosquito bites that became “swollen or red” were not taken lightly and ignored. In the comments, we can read that her daughter, on antibiotics for ten days after going to the emergency room, is “doing well”.

“There is currently no new infectious agent which threatens France or Europe and which could be fatal”

To find out more, we showed these Facebook posts and the accompanying photo to Professor Olivier Bouchaud, head of the infectious diseases department at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny. According to him, to date there are no new mosquitoes or insects in France, nor new bites, nor any new infectious agent transmitting a new disease.

“If there is a potential new danger, it could be linked to the emergence of a new infectious agent, transmitted by a vector, but it is only exceptionally linked to a new vector. [comme le serait un “nouveau type de moustique”, NDLR]. There is currently no new infectious agent that threatens France or Europe and which could be fatal.

As for the photo in question, difficult to make a diagnosis, without details of the event or precise scientific context. Sonia Giudenian’s story and the photo may correspond to several options, according to Professor Bouchaud. If the symptoms remain local, no reason to worry about a “fatal” risk according to the infectious disease doctor.

“It can be Lyme disease, or any insect bite, especially a spider, which can cause allergic inflammatory reactions and severe edema. It can be what is called cellulitis, and some forms which are infectious cellulitis linked to a very common infection called streptococcus; and dermohypoderma, it is simply skin and subcutaneous inflammation, which in practice does not mean much.

This photo seems to refer to a very local problem. In general, you should be concerned if there is a high fever, and especially if it is accompanied by general signs, in particular neurological signs: either local neurological signs, for example a facial paralysis or a nerve, or rather neurological signs not focused on a specific place, such as disturbances of consciousness. When there is a high fever and these signs of falling asleep, slowing down, intellectual disorders, disturbances in attention, it makes you think of encephalitis, which can affect the brain. But encephalitis as a result of a mosquito bite, in France, it remains really exceptional. “

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