Pollens: what is the “storm asthma” that affected allergy sufferers this weekend?

Testimonies that multiply. On social networks, several emergency department heads of hospitals in Île-de-France, particularly in Val-d'Oise. On Twitter, the head of the emergency department at the Simone Veil hospital in Eaubonne (Val d'Oise) Maxime Gautier speaks of an "exceptional (admission) peak" in this hospital which "received 245 patients" during the day against “150 passages per day” usually.

An increase in emergency visits – in particular for “reason dyspnea [sensation of difficult breathing, editor’s note] or allergy” – which coincides with a violent stormy episode in Île-de-France and in Val-d’Oise this Sunday. According to France Bleu, the number of patients admitted to the emergency room in Argenteuil (Val-d'Oise) increased tenfold over the weekend of June 10 to 11. The emergency doctor at Saint-Antoine hospital in the 12th arrondissement of Paris Jennifer Sobotka also describes a night on call from June 11 to 12 made of "asthma, asthma [and] asthma".

In question, probably, the “storm asthma”. "It is a known phenomenon which causes asthma attacks or respiratory distress just before a storm or at the time of the storm", explains Nicolas Visez, president of the National Aerobiological Surveillance Network (RNSA), lecturer at the University of Lille and specialist in pollen. According to the RNSA, the whole of Île-de-France has been on pollen red alert for several weeks. "We are in the pollen season for grasses", comments Nicolas Visez.

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According to this specialist, storms cause a fragmentation of pollen, then very numerous in the air. “These finer particles can more easily enter the bronchi, when the larger particles stop at the trachea in the nose”, deciphers this pollen specialist. According to him, this phenomenon remains rare and mainly concerns people allergic to pollen and who did not know they had asthma.

The causes are not completely stopped. “We know that the wind, humidity, water and perhaps the electric field of the storm are involved”, assures Nicolas Viez, without giving more details on the concrete reasons. “We are also trying to find out if climate change can have an impact”, he adds without knowing the answer for the time being.

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Faced with this, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Île-de-France recommended this Sunday “to people with asthma, allergies or with respiratory pathologies to avoid travel or physical effort” in the face of “the strong push emergency consultations for asthma attacks". Nicolas Viez also advises people with asthma to stay "inside" before a stormy episode, since we do not know how to "predict" the phenomenon of storm asthma.

In France, many patients in respiratory distress had already been identified in Nantes in 2013. According to Public Health France, "from June 7 to 10, 152 calls for asthma attacks were recorded versus 27 the four previous days" in this city in June 2013.