(Illustration) A view of the commune of Tsingoni, of the overseas department of Mayotte – AFP
If several overseas territories are affected by the coronavirus, certain departments
Overseas suffer at the same time
a strong epidemic of dengue fever, further complicating the situation of hospitals.
The two diseases are not caught in the same way – the coronavirus by human transmission, the dengue by bite of a tiger mosquito -, but their clinical signs “are close” (cough, fever, headache), and they have common to energize health services.
Reunion particularly affected
At the beginning of April, the government’s Scientific Council underlined the “complicated management of febrile patients” in Overseas, with “the resurgence of dengue fever”. It is in Mayotte that it has been doing the most damage for the moment with 12 deaths since the start of the year according to the ARS, compared to 4 so far for the Covid-19. Since January, 3,163 cases of dengue fever have been confirmed, but because of all those who did not consult, the number of people actually affected would be “very much higher”, says the ARS, which also has “292 hospitalizations including 19 in intensive care ”.
In comparison, 380 cases of coronavirus are currently listed in Mayotte, and “never had more than 4 to 5 people in intensive care at the same time,” reported the director of the ARS, former Minister Dominique Voynet. Réunion, for its part, is experiencing “the highest number of cases of Covid-19 in overseas France and the highest number of cases of dengue fever,” said Dr François Chièze of the Reunion ARS.
Green waste collection stopped with coronavirus
The dengue epidemic has been raging there since 2018, when 8 deaths were recorded. “The good habits of destroying the breeding places of mosquitoes from the Chikungunya period had been forgotten,” notes Dr Chièze. The following year, comforted by a high temperature, the epidemic started up again with more than 18,000 confirmed cases and 14 deaths. In 2020, “viral circulation is still strong, even if we are below 2019 for the moment”, with more than 4,000 cases since January, 183 hospitalizations and four deaths, explains the doctor.
In comparison, Reunion has 412 cases of coronavirus, but for the moment no deaths linked to this virus. Confinement linked to the coronavirus has not helped reduce the number of dengue cases, he noted, even if mosquito control operations, which were interrupted for a time, resumed. The residents, trapped at home, were certainly able to cut the leaves where the tiger mosquito nestles in their gardens, but confinement requires, the municipalities were unable to remove this green waste, so they stayed close to their homes. Covid-19 screenings have paradoxically contributed to “better knowledge of dengue cases” and more hospitalizations for the disease, he said.
Weakened health systems
But the two territories deplore the fact that many people give up consulting. “Some say that” it doesn’t matter, it’s dengue “”, but dengue like Covid-19 are particularly dangerous on “the most fragile patients”, underlines Dominique Voynet, who noted “several cases of patients having both “. Same thing in Reunion: “Catching dengue is putting yourself in a state of immunosuppression” and developing a severe form of Covid-19, recalls François Chièze. For him, “the psychological effect of the coronavirus is to lessen the importance of dengue fever, which is not mistakenly perceived as a serious illness”.
Dengue also affects Guyana, where it is “in an epidemic stage in the Kourou and Maroni sector and in a pre-epidemic stage in the Cayenne sector and in the West coast”, according to the ARS, which judges that an “epidemic throughout the region is looming for the coming weeks”. The ARS calls for “ensuring that the number of sick people at the same time is as low as possible to allow the health system to cope with it”, in a territory that has 111 cases of coronavirus and only 40 beds of intensive care. Cases of dengue fever are also on the rise in the Antilles, according to health authorities, who remind us of the need to protect ourselves from the coronavirus but also from mosquitoes.
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