Chad's Ministry of Public Health and Prevention announced on 3 October 2026 the notification of dengue cases in Ouaddaï, Wadi Fira and Sila provinces, as well as the capital N'Djamena, in a communiqué signed by Secretary of State Dr Mbaïdedji Dekandji Francine source: Tchadinfos.
The communiqué described dengue as a viral disease transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes, manifesting with high fever, headaches, muscle and joint pain, nausea, vomiting, swollen glands and skin rashes, with bleeding possible in severe forms. The ministry urged anyone showing these symptoms to seek diagnosis and treatment at the nearest health facility, and recommended sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets — including during the day — wearing long sleeves, using repellents, and eliminating stagnant water to interrupt mosquito breeding.
As of 5 October, no numeric case count, hospitalization figures or death toll had been published, according to Le Pays Tchad, and no WHO Disease Outbreak News bulletin specific to this alert has been located. The ministry's messaging has focused on prevention — bed nets and eliminating stagnant water — suggesting an early-warning posture rather than a declared epidemic.
The same four locations were the site of Chad's first confirmed dengue epidemic in 2023, when the ministry declared an outbreak on 15 August in Abéché health district, Ouaddaï province — the first dengue epidemic ever recorded in the country. By 1 October 2023, WHO reported 1,342 suspected cases, including 41 confirmed, across eight health districts in the same four provinces (N'Djamena, Ouaddaï, Sila and Wadi Fira), with one death among confirmed cases and Ouaddaï accounting for the majority of confirmed infections. Whether the current alert represents a new seasonal surge or a continuation of smaller case clusters reported earlier in 2026 remains unclear, as Chadian authorities have not yet characterized the scale of the current notification.