Six people have died from chikungunya on the French overseas department of R\u00e9union Island since the start of the year, health officials confirmed on Wednesday. The mosquito-borne virus has infected more than 33,000 people on the island so far.<\/p>\n
The deaths, between 10 and 30 March, were of people aged over 70 with underlying health conditions, the latest bulletin<\/a> from France\u2019s public health agency, Sant\u00e9 Publique France said.<\/p>\n The agency also said that several other deaths were being investigated to determine whether the virus was a factor.<\/p>\n An epidemic was declared on R\u00e9union Island<\/a> on 13 January, following a surge in cases that began in August 2024.<\/p>\n Health officials linked the outbreak to rising mosquito numbers during the summer and low immunity levels in the island\u2019s population of around 900,000.<\/p>\n Health officials say the situation remains serious, despite some early signs of improvement.<\/p>\n Reunion Island launches emergency health plan amid chikungunya epidemic<\/a><\/p>\n Spread by mosquitoes<\/p>\n Chikungunya is spread by Aedes mosquitoes and causes fever, a rash and joint pain. It can be particularly dangerous for older people, pregnant women, babies and those with chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n In the week from 31 March to 6 April, a total of 4,913 new cases were confirmed, down from nearly 6,300 the week before.<\/p>\n Read more on RFI English<\/a><\/p>\n Read also:
Cyclone death toll rises to four on ravaged French island<\/a>
Two die from chikungunya as virus spreads on France’s Reunion Island<\/a>
R\u00e9union Island company revives ancient fermentation technique to boost health<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six people have died from chikungunya on the French overseas department of R\u00e9union Island since the start of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,17035,17034,17036,17033],"class_list":{"0":"post-28309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-health-officials","12":"tag-mosquito-borne-virus","13":"tag-officials-confirmed","14":"tag-reunion-island"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114354983261854469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}