EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP
Descriptive – An outbreak of five cases on a single street in a village in the Somme raises questions about possible environmental causes of ALS.
The result of chance or the birth of an epidemic? In the village of Saint-Vast-en-Chaussy, in the Somme, residents are wondering: no less than five cases of Charcot disease have been found in a single street in almost twelve years. In general, according to Public Health France (SPF), there are 2.7 new cases of this pathology per 100,000 inhabitants per year in our country.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Charcot disease, is a neurodegenerative pathology that manifests itself by progressive muscular paralysis due to the degeneration of motor neurons that control muscle contraction. Currently incurable, the outcome is dramatic: life expectancy after the onset of symptoms is three or four years on average – although 10% of patients live more than ten years.
Looking for potential “clusters”.
Faced with this mystery, the mayor of Saint-Vast-en-Chaussy contacted the Hauts-de-France Regional Health Agency (ARS), which contacted Public Health France. “investigation is in class
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