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Northern French communes ban swimming after beaches contaminated

Authorities in northern France have banned swimming at the beaches of Urville-Nacqueville, Ravenoville and Foucarville following a bacterial contamination.

Published: 18 June 2022 16:17 CEST
Authorities in northern France have banned swimming on certain beaches following a bacterial contamination.
Authorities in northern France have banned swimming on certain beaches following a bacterial contamination. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP)

Many will regret that the sea is no off-limits – particularly in the midst of one of the country’s most severe heatwaves in history. 

On Friday evening the Regional Health Authority of Normandy warned of a bacterial contamination of three beaches along the Channel – Urville-Nacqueville, Ravenoville and Foucarville. The communes of La Hague and Sainte-Mère-Eglise then moved to ban swimming. 

Local decrees mention high levels of E. coli as well as Enterococcus in the water. 

Experts believe that the high prevalence of Enterococcus is likely due to sewage. 

“In the case of the Channel beaches, the fact that there is Enterococcus is a sign that there is feacal contamination in the water,” said infectious diseases expert Jean-Paul Stahl in a FranceInfo interview.  

The ban on swimming at Urville-Nacqueville will go on until at least Tuesday June 21st and will only be lifted if tests show that the contamination has settled down. 

The ban on swimming at the beaches of Ravenoville and Foucarville will last until June 30th. 

Other contaminations

France has suffered other bacterial contaminations in recent days. 

On Friday, residents of Châteauroux in the Indre département were warned to stop drinking tap water after high levels of E. coli were detected. 

The exact source of the outbreak is unknown.

Among the many hypotheses put forward by scientists and local officials is that there has been some kind of sewage leak or that somehow bacteria from an abattoir entered the water supply – E. coli is often found in the intestines of cattle. 

Children and infants are particularly vulnerable to the bacteria. Local officials have banned the bathing or showering of these groups until the water is deemed safe. 

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HEALTH

France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

Nearly 200 cases of cholera have been reported on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, which is struggling to contain the deadly epidemic.

Published: 21 June 2024 14:08 CEST
France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

“As of June 18th, 2024, 193 cases of cholera have been reported in Mayotte,” France’s Santé publique France health agency reported in its weekly update.

Of those, 172 were locally acquired cases, while 21 were in people infected in the neighbouring Comoros archipelago and countries on the African continent.

Cholera is an infectious disease typically causing severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. It spreads easily in unsanitary conditions.

Mayotte, which is home to around 320,000 people, reported its first locally acquired cases of cholera in late April, according to officials in Paris.

Two people have died since the beginning of the epidemic, one of them a three-year-old girl.

Santé publique France warned there was a particularly high risk of transmission in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, “as long as access to drinking water and sanitation is unsatisfactory”.

French authorities have been criticised for failing to secure access to drinking water to prevent a cholera epidemic in its overseas territory.

President Emmanuel Macron called for cholera to be ‘consigned to the past’ when he hosted a summit on Thursday on vaccine production in Africa.

Many parts of Africa have recently seen fatal outbreaks of cholera, which has highlighted the shortage of local vaccine production.

The Comoros, which has been affected by a cholera epidemic for the past four months, has recorded 134 deaths and more than 8,700 cases, according to a report published by local authorities this month.

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