7 Feb 2019

Senior New Caledonia police officer dies of dengue

7:12 pm on 7 February 2019
A police van in New Caledonia

Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Walter Zweifel

A senior French police officer has died of dengue in New Caledonia.

The commander of the gendarmes in Noumea says 43-year-old Isabelle Jensen died on Wednesday.

The statement, published on Facebook, says she had taken up her post in New Caledonia in August and worked in logistics.

Last week, health authorities said almost 500 people had contracted dengue since an epidemic of the mosquito-borne disease was declared in the week before Christmas.

She was the first person to die in the current dengue outbreak.