Dengue cases

Dengue impact widespread in Pacific in past 18 months

The Team Coordinator, Health Security and Communicable Diseases, Angela Merianos, says outbreaks were reported from American Samoa, Fiji, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu in 2017.

She said Wallis and Futuna has had an outbreak of dengue type 1, with French Polynesia and New Caledonia having both serotypes 1 and 2 of the illness.

Dr Merianos said Niue has had types 2 and 4, with Kiribati recently reporting type 2 dengue fever.

Calls from NZ for more dengue awareness in Samoa

The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, wants more dengue warnings to reach travellers leaving from New Zealand and Australia.

Samoa's health ministry says nearly 2500 people contracted the mosquito-borne disease in the last three months of last year, and five of them died of it.

Aupito William Sio, who's currently in Samoa, says that on his way there he didn't notice much information for travellers about the disease.

"I'm not quite sure what the best way of getting the message out," he said.

WHO says dengue is spreading across the Pacific

Fiji has now confirmed 143 cases, Nauru has confirmed more than 50, and 13 have been confirmed in American Samoa.

That follows outbreaks in Solomon Islands which has had more than 10,000 dengue cases in the last seven months, and in Vanuatu which has had more than 1700 cases since November.

RNZ reports in New Caledonia three people have died and a health emergency has been declared as more than 1-thousand cases have been recorded since September.