Dengue Travel Alert Includes Tahiti, Moorea, Bora-Bora

French Polynesia, an archipelago of over 100 islands and atolls in the South Pacific Ocean, has become a vacationer's paradise. Unfortunately, the mosquito-transmitted Dengue has also found a home in 2025.

As of May 22, 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes French Polynesia in its Level 1 Travel Health Advisory. The CDC says the disease can take up to two weeks to develop, with illness generally lasting less than a week.

As of April 30, 2025, 1,241 cases of Dengue-like illness were reported this year, five times higher than the 237 cases reported for the same period in 2024.

The majority of recent Dengue cases were from the Windward Islands.

Cumulatively, DENV-1 has become the predominant serotype since the end of 2024.

French Polynesia includes Tahiti, Moorea, Bora-Bora, the Marquesas Islands, and the Austral Islands of Tubuai and Rurutu. In 2025, about 1 million visitors visited French Polynesia, including about 320,000 who visited Tahiti last year.

The CDC says travelers to risk areas should prevent mosquito bites by using an EPA-registered insect repellent and wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants when outdoors. 

A second-generation Dengue vaccine is available in some countries in May 2025, but not in the United States.