The Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety Agency (ANSES) has said an insecticide product banned in 2013 that goes by the name of Sniper 1000 EC DDVP is posing risk to humans in France.
According to ANSES on Tuesday, people seeking to ward off a plague of bed bugs in France are running the risk of poisoning themselves with the illegal insecticide.
The agency in Paris reported that 206 people had been affected by poisoning between January 2018 and June this year from using the Snipe insecticide.
It warned that the products could cause illness on contact or being swallowed or even death if being inhaled.
Reports with images of bed bugs did the rounds on social media in France in the summer, with cinemas, public transport and other areas affected.
ANSES reports that the insects had been spreading increasingly over recent years, with around 11 per cent of all households reported to have been affected between 2017 and 2022.
The bedbugs are resistant to virtually all commercially available insecticides, and are best eradicated by heat, steam or freezing, according to the agency.
“Professional assistance should be called in as a last resort,” ANSES urges.