Pointe-à-Pitre (AFP)
The first death due to the dengue epidemic that rages in Guadeloupe from and in the northern islands (Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy) was announced Wednesday by the prefecture of Guadeloupe and the Regional Health Agency.
A patient died on February 8 in Paris but the direct link with dengue has just been established after an investigation, according to a joint press release from the prefecture and the ARS.
"The collegial meeting of infectiologists classified the death as directly linked to dengue," said the press release.
A viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical and subtropical areas around the world, dengue fever has experienced accelerated development in recent years. It causes flu-like syndrome, sometimes with fatal complications.
The deceased patient was a 75-year-old woman, "regularly staying in Saint-Martin", who had been medically treated at the Marigot hospital on February 6 "for deterioration of the general condition".
She was evacuated a few hours later at the Pointe-à-Pitre teaching hospital in Guadeloupe, "taking into account the unfavorable development in a context notably of a diagnosis of biologically confirmed dengue". Evacuated to the Paul Brousse hospital in Paris to undergo "potentially a transplant act", the patient finally died on February 8.
Prefecture and ARS recall that "dengue is a disease that can kill" and encourage the population to protect themselves from mosquito bites and against the proliferation of mosquito vectors "aedes aegypti".
A first death related to dengue fever has already been announced in Martinique in early February, as part of the epidemic in progress in this territory since July 2019.
© 2020 AFP