Reunion Island hospital boss calls for reinforcements amid virus outbreak

Reunion Island health chiefs call for more doctors to fight chikungunya epidemic

Health chiefs on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion on Sunday called for more doctors and medicines to help them combat an epidemic of the mosquito-borne chikungunya disease.

Emmanuel Macron will travel in the Indian Ocean from this Monday, April 21. On the program, he will go to Mayotte, La Réunion and Madagascar, but why is he moving there?

Reunion Island hospital boss calls for reinforcements amid virus outbreak

Hospitals on the French Indian Ocean Island of Reunion are reaching breaking point amid a chikungunya virus outbreak that has claimed six lives since January, affecting one out of nine people. Health officials are calling for urgent reinforcements to manage the crisis, just days before President Emmanuel Macron’s scheduled visit.

The hospital in La Réunion is facing "a great tension", warns its director Lionel Calenge, while six people have already died since the beginning of the epidemic, whose peak could soon be exceeded.

Réunion hospital boss urges reinforcements amid chikungunya outbreak

French President Emmanuel Macron plans to head to the island on Tuesday as part of a five-day tour of Indian Ocean territories.

The CHU had triggered the White Plan in early April, a device that allows certain operations to be de-programmed, or to call back staff on leave in hospitals, in the face of the epidemic peak.