The adult emergency department of the Laon hospital center (Aisne) had to close its doors on Wednesday, time to organize the disinfection of the premises.
Tuesday evening, according to L'Union, the department's firefighters took a patient to the emergency room, who was infested with bedbugs.
Although it was cleared quickly, it took a few more hours for the premises to organize the arrival of a company specializing in decontamination.
The decision was taken to close the reception, and to redirect patients to the neighboring pediatric emergency rooms, and to the emergency rooms of the hospitals of Saint-Quentin, Soissons and Château-Thierry.
The hospital communicated on Facebook a little before 8 p.m. that it had reopened its service, but did not give the reasons for the closure.
According to L'Union, an inspection at the end of the afternoon should remove any suspicion.
Bedbugs are brown, wingless insects about the size of an apple seed.
They feed at night and can cause up to a hundred bites in eight to ten hours.
Their resurgence in recent years is linked to “the rise of international travel, second-hand trade and the development of resistance to insecticides” according to the Ministry of Health, and has led to real psychoses.
Although they can cause allergic reactions, they do not, to date, transmit any disease.