Reunion Island - Chikungunya
Actually, I got tired of seeing this on the "news" page so have decided to dedicate a page solely to the outbreak of the disease and all the hoohah that surrounded it. I fyou are looking for a more cyncal appraoch try my blog -
Chikungunya
Anyone thinking of coming to Reunion cannot ignore the current epidemic of Chikungunya that has swept the island, and leapfrogged to all the other islands in the vicinity, and is currently causing problems in India. It is said that Chikungunya fever has reached a quasi-pandemic dimension with more than a million people infected during the past 24 months in a large geographic area encompassing the East-African equatorial coasts, the Indian Ocean islands and half of the Indian peninsula. Quote from lsz - read the full text here.
On Réunion to date (02/07/2006) official figures put the numbers at close to 266,000 infected and 238 dead; some half of which showed no other underlying illnesses. In the week ending 2nd July 600 new cases were reported - a huge decrease from the 40000 cases in one week in February this year although an increase on the previous two weeks. The CHIK is obviously not going away, but then anyone who cared to think about it would realise that. The authorities meanwhile are continuing the Winter cleaning by spraying completely a further 69 cemeteries and 139 ravines. A cynic might argue that as no one lives in the ravines and those in the cemetry are beyond even the CHIK the exercise is a trifle futile.
Tourism to the island has been hit badly and recent estimates both official and "real" (ie people concerned that I have spoken to) say up to 70% of the trade has been lost this year. Of course this is good news if you are one of those tourists that doesn't like tourists - there is plenty of space! On a more practical note one should mention that there aren't many (if any) mossies on the beach and none above 1500m - and so life isn't that bad after all.
The CHIK has been a huge worry to the authorities even if they ignored the early warnings over one year ago. Since the beginning of 2006, they have begun to take the outbreak seriously and are now in the process of over-reacting. Plans have been put into motion to cloud the island in insecticide and some 76 million € have been promised - probably as compensation for the environmental damage ;-) In fact, the "prefet", Laurent Cayrel, has said that "all the ingredients are there for a resumption of the epidemic next summer". (your winter that is!) Not good news for the tourist industry and further proof that we don't really need politicians ;-)
