By NewsDesk  @bactiman63

During the week of May 20, ARS Indian Ocean reported an additional 900 dengue fever cases on Reunion.

Image/ARS Indian Ocean

After the epidemic peak in late April (more than 1,300 reported cases per week), the number of reported cases is currently declining.

Nevertheless, the circulation of the virus persists at a high level and the dispersion of cases continues on the island.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 14,000 cases have been confirmed with about 1,000 cases reported each week.

In the south, Saint-Pierre is the only commune reporting an increase in cases. In the west, an increase in the number of cases is observed at the Possession, Port, Saline les Hauts, Guillaume, Saint-Gilles les Hauts and Piton Saint-Leu.

And in the north, the number of cases is increasing at Sainte-Clotilde and the Mountain.

Since the beginning of the epidemic in 2018, including 15 deaths.

More than 63,000 suspect dengue cases have been reported since the beginning of the outbreak.

In view of the epidemic peak, initially planned for mid-April, 50 military personnel ( 10 coordinating agents and 40 anti-vector control officers ) from the civil security department arrived in Reunion in mid-March to strengthen the vector control mechanism ( LAV) local.

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For more than 2 months, these civil security soldiers supported the teams of the LAV service of the ARS Indian Ocean and the volunteer firefighters of the SDIS 974 in their actions of treatment of circulation zones of the virus . These soldiers also participated in the coordination of communal operations in the various districts.

Their commitment helped to strengthen the mobilization of resources on the ground at the height of the epidemic, with more than 200 agents intervening daily door-to-door in all neighborhoods affected by dengue fever.

This reinforced vector control mechanism has thus helped to limit the spread of the virus and the scale of the epidemic wave . With the departure of these national reinforcements, the mobilization on the ground remains important in this month of June with 135 agents of the ARS (titular and temporary) and 50 firefighters volunteers of the SDIS which continue to intervene daily around all the cases reported.

dengue