“Dengue fever kills in silence”, recalls the slogan, but the authorities of New Caledonia are pulling out all the stops to be heard. “We are in an absolute health emergency,” said Dr Tristan Derycke, deputy mayor of Noumea.
In one month, the dengue epidemic which rages on the “pebble” has already killed two people. “In both cases, they were young women with no medical history, who had not traveled in the previous three weeks and who succumbed to the virus within a few days, specifies AFP.
Since the beginning of the year, almost all the districts of Noumea have been affected. With 344 cases, the capital accounts for almost half of the people affected on the island (615).
Health authorities fear a major epidemic, especially since three out of four dengue serotypes are in circulation.
They have therefore implemented an emergency plan by intensifying vector control. But chemical insecticides, such as deltamethrin, show their limit, write your dailies. More and more mosquitoes have developed resistance to these destructive agents.
The municipality is also counting on the field work of its agents to destroy the breeding sites and appeals to the civic sense of the inhabitants to drive away the mosquitoes which find refuge in the gardens to reproduce.
Relief measures pending a more lasting solution. It is an eradication of mosquitoes, based on the introduction of a bacterium (wolbachia). Developed with the support of Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), this program should lead to the elimination of dengue fever in Nouméa by 2019.
