It’s a record. Half the year has not yet passed and it is already recording the highest number of cases of dengue fever imported into mainland France. At least 2,666 people have brought back the disease from travel abroad or overseas since 1er January, the vast majority of which (76%) coming from Martinique and Guadeloupe.
While the vast majority of cases are asymptomatic, dengue fever can be fatal. The first symptoms of the disease – high fever, severe headache, muscle pain, nausea – are not specific to it and can be confused with those of other pathologies.
In the two West Indian islands, a very significant epidemic has been occurring since the summer of 2023: the number of symptomatic cases and 85 people treated in intensive care units is estimated at 35,000. Nineteen people died from the disease there in one year, a usual mortality rate on these islands where the disease is endemic, with an epidemic peak every four to five years. If in Guadeloupe the epidemic is in a declining phase, it is still ongoing in Martinique.
All regions are affected
Despite everything, as of June 11, according to the latest data from Public Health France (SPF), no indigenous case had yet been detected in mainland France, which means that a priori, no infected person has been bitten by a tiger mosquito which then transmitted dengue fever in mainland France.
“But the more imported cases there are, the more this increases the risk of the emergence of epidemic outbreaks in Francenotes Marie-Claire Paty, coordinator of vector-borne disease surveillance at the SPF infectious diseases department. And this risk will increase from year to year. » Since the first outbreaks of contamination observed in 2010, there have been outbreaks almost every year, with a peak, in the summer of 2022, of 65 indigenous cases spread across nine outbreaks.
Especially since Aedes albopictus – scientific name for the tiger mosquito –, the sole vector of the disease in France, continues to colonize new municipalities every year, its presence having been reported in 78 departments, seven more in just one year. All regions are now affected by this invasive species which arrived in France in 2004.
With the gradual rise in summer temperatures, weather conditions will become more and more favorable for the rapid hatching of mosquito eggs, increasing the risk of contamination. “All the lights are green for endemic contamination in mainland France”underlines André Cabié, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at the Martinique University Hospital, in Fort-de-France.
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