CHIKUNGUNYA, A WATER-BORNE DISEASE: HOW THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLAND OF REUNION ISLAND HAVE HANDLED THE CRISIS?

Maryse Gaimard, Dominique Soulancé, University of Lille 3, France

Abstract

The Reunion Island faced a great epidemic of Chikungunya in 2005-2006. Chikungunya is a vector-borne disease transmitted by a mosquito. It is in the town of St Pierre, in the south of the island, that the first cases of chikungunya appeared in 2005. We chose to work on the Ravine des Cabris, a town of 15,000 inhabitants where individual housing outweighs the block of flats, where houses are surrounded by gardens  – closed in for most of them, well watered and where the foliage is important: we are in a green urban area which is a place of high prevalence. It concentrates the conditions that favour the contact man / vector and therefore the spreading of the epidemic. The study of Chikungunya disease and the gardens of the Ravine of Cabris in Reunion is part of a research project ANR SEST (2006-2009) "Anthropo-MTV". In this article we shall make use of the results that ensue from two surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009. One of the fundamentals to fight the epidemic was the implementation of measures to cleanse the environment, especially regarding the watercontrol. Those measures that concerned both collective and individual spaces, particularly gardens, were accepted in different ways depending on the people. People are proud of their gardens; they are part of their identity. Never had they thought that, one day, their garden would be the cause of their illness. The aim of this paper is to show how the Reunionese people have handled their environment during the epidemic. It was observed, 18 months after the epidemic, that the vector control remained the most effective measure to prevent chikungunya but this has not been assimilated by everyone. It can therefore become problematic in the case of a re-emergence of the disease.