The emergency fund amounts to some $208,000, French State Secretary for Overseas Yves Jégo said in a joint release with French Minister of Health Roselyne Bachelot, adding they were closely following developments on the epidemic front in New Caledonia.
Some of these funds, Jégo said, had already mobilized since mid-February to purchase more equipment — including insecticide spraying machines —and some 30,000 personal mosquito repellent sprays to be distributed to the population.
The latest update in terms of number of cases in New Caledonia, revealed a staggering 1,450 persons had been affected by the disease, mainly in its serotype 4, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28, 2009.
Late February also, New Caledonia’s health department has confirmed the first death directly related to the dengue fever.
Director of Health Jean-Paul Grangeon earlier told local media the main concern was the pace of over eighty new cases per day.
The serotype 4 of the disease remained prevalent, as opposed to previous years, when it was the type 1 that had been responsible for most cases — over 1,100 cases for the whole of 2008.
The main hotspot of the epidemic is the capital Nouméa and its greater area.
But many new cases have also been reported in other parts of the French Pacific territory, including the South of the main island.
Since last year, when the type 4 virus appeared around Sept. 2008, awareness campaigns and targeted spraying of insecticides do not seem to have had a significant impact on the progression rate of the disease.
Since last year also, New Caledonian authorities have stepped preventive measures to detect any imported case of dengue.
The measures include heat-sensitive cameras that are now screening inbound passengers at the Nouméa-La Tontouta International airport.
Any passenger with a detected unusually high body temperature is approached by health officials and asked to fill in a form and to get immediate medical attention.
Once again, authorities have called on the support from the general public.
They have also stressed that in order for any campaign to be effective, it must have the full support of the population, especially for all still waters spots — which are potential breeding sites for the vector mosquito’s larvae — to be cleaned and any bushy area in compounds also eradicated.
Other recommendations include the use of mosquito nets and mosquito personal repellents to avoid bites from the virus-carrying insect.
Dengue fever is transmitted by mosquitoes.
Its early symptoms are fever, joint and muscular pains, headaches, nausea and in the later stages internal hemorrhage that can prove fatal if left untreated.
The other concern is the combination of the quasi-endemic serotype 1 of the virus and the newly-arrived serotype 4, to which residents have not been exposed for the past thirty years, which makes them more vulnerable, especially if they have already been infected a first time by the type 1 virus.
Hot and humid weather in the whole region
New Caledonia, just like most of the South-western Pacific islands, has experienced particular hot and humid weather in the past few weeks, a regular feature in this southern hemisphere hot tropical season.
The situation has been further complicated by an unusual abundance of tropical depressions that have brought torrential rains and have caused severe, deadly and destructive flooding in Australia’s State of Queensland, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.
In all of these countries, where a post-flooding situation still exists, local public health authorities are still struggling to contain an upsurge of water-borne diseases, including dengue fever, but also leptospirosis, typhoid and diarrhea.
As a result, since last year, the type 4 dengue fever has also appeared on a larger scale in neighboring Fiji (over two thousand cases), Samoa, American Samoa, Kiribati and Palau.
In French Polynesia, authorities are also worried at the increase in the number of type 4 dengue fever cases (13, according to the latest counts).
Wallis and Futuna, the third French Pacific territory located Northeast of Fiji, has so far identified 5 cases.
