Chikungunya outbreak escalates in French Polynesia

Transcript

The head of surveillance at French Polynesia's Ministry of Health says medical resources are stretched with over 8,000 people consulting doctors and the deaths of two elderly people linked to an escalating outbreak of chikungunya.

Dr Henri Pierre Mallet told Jenny Meyer the mosquito borne illness is now spreading throughout the territory and while for most people the illness is mild, lasting about five days, it can be painful.

DR HENRI PIERRE MALLET: It's difficult to count the number exactly. So last week we estimated the total number of people consulting a doctor practitioner to be around 8,000 people and in these cases we had more than one thousand confirmed by lab test people for chikungunya. The main islands, Tahiti and Moorea, are the most affected but we have also several other small or medium islands now affected like in Raiatea for example Bora Bora also and other archipelagos in the Tuamotu. So it's spreading quite quickly now we have really an outbreak increasing in French Polynesia.

JENNY MEYER: I understand that in fact two people have in fact died of chikungunya, I think that's quite unusual, can you explain what has happened with those two deaths?

HPM: No, for us here the event is not unusual. The cases were old people around 80 years old, and were sick before chikungunya with cardiopathy and other respiratory problems and the tests were positive for chikungunya, so probably the chikungunya infection lead to the final issue.

JM: Are you able to tell me how many people have been hospitalised with the illness?

HPM: Hospitalisations, the same thing, last week the cases properly identified as hospitalised was around 100 but now we have probably double. The latest evaluation on these 100 hospitalisations showed that a third of this population is regarding pregnant women in fact. And pregnant women are just hospitalised for surveillance for one or two days only because they have fever not because they have chik, and we found chik when we check them but chikungunya is not a danger, is not a problem for the pregnancy during the pregnancy, just like with other fever, just to take care about the fever. Chikungunya could be dangerous only at the time of the delivery. Because in this case the chikungunya can go to the baby.

JM: It's been five or six weeks now, the chikungunya outbreak in French Polynesia, how much longer do you expect it might run for?

HPM: A very difficult question as usual. We have an increase of the outbreak in the last two weeks. And we could face a second wave after the holidays in the small islands. But in the next weeks, for the moment, it's really for us like an emergency and a big challenge to face now.