The number of dengue cases continues to increase in mainland France. Four indigenous cases were even detected.
It’s not just the chikungunya that is rampant in France. Many cases of dengue have been detected in mainland France for several months. According to the latest public health report France published on July 23, 2025, more than 1,720 cases have been detected since the start of the year, including more than 620 since the beginning of May. These are mostly imported cases of Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Polynesia, since the virus is mainly raging in tropical areas. If the number of cases is worrying, is far from the 2024 record, with nearly 4,700 cases in mainland France.
Four indigenous cases, therefore contracted in the territory, of Dengue have been detected since July. Two were reported in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (in Aubagne in the Bouches-du-Rhône and Sanary-sur-Mer in the Var), and the other two in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, in Saint-Chamond in the Loire.
How is dengue transmit?
Dengue, like chikungunya, is transmitted through mosquitoes. The virus “is transmitted to humans during a bite by mosquitoes of the genre Aedes, mostly Aedes aegypti; but also sometimes the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). When a mosquito feeds on the blood of an infected person, the mosquito can then contaminate other people “, according to the Pasteur Institute. In some rare cases, dengue can also be transmitted from a pregnant woman to her baby or even during a transfusion.
Unlike chikungunya, there are several strains of the virus and it is therefore possible to be infected several times by dengue. A new infection even increases “the risk of developing severe dengue”, according to the Pasteur Institute.
What are the symptoms of dengue?
In the majority of cases, dengue is asymptomatic, or manifests itself in slight symptoms. In infected people, after 4 to 10 days on average the symptoms are: high fever, headache, nausea and vomiting, as well as joint and muscle pain. An eruption is also possible. “Symptoms persist two to seven days and the health of the infected person generally evolves favorably,” notes the Pasteur Institute.
But in some rare cases, a severe form of dengue, potentially fatal, occurs. It can cause severe abdominal pain, significant vomiting, hemorrhages, extreme tachycardia or even a failure of the organs. There is no specific dengue treatment, only symptomatic treatments.
How to protect yourself from dengue?
Unfortunately there is no specific means of prevention of dengue. No vaccine is available. “Individual prevention is therefore essentially based on the means of protection against mosquito bites: repellents in sprays or creams, serpentines, electric diffusers, long clothes, mosquito nets”, recalls Public Health France.
Prevention is also collective, and is based on the fight against tiger mosquitoes, in particular by eliminating stagnant water points, where the eggs of the insect can be laid.
