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Mosquito-Borne Virus Found on French Island

Posted on: Friday, 17 February 2006, 18:00 CST

PARIS - Nearly 100,000 people have been infected this year by a mosquito-borne virus that has killed at least four on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, France's health minister said Friday.

So far this year, four people have died of the Chikungunya virus and another 48 people have died from causes linked to the virus, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

It was the first time officials have confirmed deaths related to this outbreak of the virus, which is usually not life-threatening but can cause muscle and joint pain, rash and fever. No vaccine has been identified.

The numbers released Friday mean the disease has affected 14 percent of the 700,000 people living on the island, a popular resort destination for tourists from the French mainland.

Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said 110,000 cases of Chikungunya had been reported since monitoring began after an outbreak last March, but that just 12,400 were recorded in all of 2005. "That means we have nearly 100,000 cases only since the beginning of 2006," he said on France-Info radio.

"We need transparency and truth," he said. "We must take care of patients as quickly and as well as possible."

A virus expert at France's Pasteur Institute, Herve Zeller, called the outbreak "not normal," blaming the rapid spread on high numbers of mosquitoes and a particularly virulent strain of the virus.

He said that while most people recover from the highly contagious virus in a week or so, some continue to suffer severe joint pain for several months.

Some 2,400 soldiers, emergency workers and others are fighting the virus by spraying the island's mosquito population, the ministry said. The French government has sent 17 doctors, 30 nurses and 65 hospital beds to the island, but critics say that is inadequate to fight the fast-spreading virus.

The virus has disrupted life on the small tropical island, east of Madagascar. Officials have delayed the return to school after the summer holidays, planned for this month, and blood banks have stopped taking donations on Reunion.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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