Pacific

First chikungunya case in Tahiti

14:02 pm on 30 May 2014

The health authorities in French Polynesia say they have detected the territory's first case of chikungunya.

They say the mosquito-borne disease was diagnosed in a 60-year-old woman who had recently returned from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.

Photo: RNZ

She is reportedly not in need of hospital care.

The disease has been in New Caledonia and this year, there has been a large outbreak in Tonga as well.

In 2006, the disease claimed 250 lives in the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion where the epidemic hit about a third of the island's population.