Reunion hospital boss urges reinforcements amid chikungunya outbreak

The head of the hospital service on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion on Sunday called for medical reinforcements to cope with an epidemic of the mosquito-borne chikungunya disease.

“We are really stretched to our limits,” Lionel Calenge told the RMC radio station.

“Epidemiologists predicted the epidemic peak would hit in mid-April, and here we are.”

His appeal went out a day before French President Emmanuel Macron was to embark on a five-day tour of Indian Ocean territories, including a stop in Reunion on Tuesday.

Since the start of the year, chikungunya has already killed six people on the island, and around one in nine people in the population of nearly 900,000 is believed to be affected.

Although France’s public health service said the epidemic appeared to be easing in early April, Calenge said, “Every day, for several weeks now, we have been getting between 30 and 40 patients with ‘chik’ in our two emergency wards.”

The four hospitals under his charge have insufficient beds, with 581 people hospitalized with the disease since the start of 2025, including 46 newborns, while 540 medical staff have been off work since early March because they contracted chikungunya, he said.

He said that his service had so far received three back-up doctors, but he was calling for six more.

The hospital service has put off some 300 previously scheduled operations and called personnel back from leave to cope with the outbreak, Calenge said.

© 2025 AFP

The head of the hospital service on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion on Sunday called for medical reinforcements to cope with an epidemic of the mosquito-borne chikungunya disease.

“We are really stretched to our limits,” Lionel Calenge told the RMC radio station.

“Epidemiologists predicted the epidemic peak would hit in mid-April, and here we are.”

His appeal went out a day before French President Emmanuel Macron was to embark on a five-day tour of Indian Ocean territories, including a stop in Reunion on Tuesday.

Since the start of the year, chikungunya has already killed six people on the island, and around one in nine people in the population of nearly 900,000 is believed to be affected.

Although France’s public health service said the epidemic appeared to be easing in early April, Calenge said, “Every day, for several weeks now, we have been getting between 30 and 40 patients with ‘chik’ in our two emergency wards.”

The four hospitals under his charge have insufficient beds, with 581 people hospitalized with the disease since the start of 2025, including 46 newborns, while 540 medical staff have been off work since early March because they contracted chikungunya, he said.

He said that his service had so far received three back-up doctors, but he was calling for six more.

The hospital service has put off some 300 previously scheduled operations and called personnel back from leave to cope with the outbreak, Calenge said.

© 2025 AFP