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Chikungunya

Last reviewed: 01-09-2008

A DEBILITATING ILLNESS


A Ministry of Health worker sprays insecticide around homes following an outbreak in Port Louis, Mauritius. REUTERS/Nita Bhalla
A Ministry of Health worker sprays insecticide around homes following an outbreak in Port Louis, Mauritius. REUTERS/Nita Bhalla
Chikungunya is a rare viral infection transmitted by the bite of the infected aedes aegypti mosquito, occurring primarily in tropical areas of Africa as well as South and Southeast Asia. Symptoms include high fever, joint and muscular pain, severe headaches, body aches and a rash similar to that seen in dengue patients.

  • Occurs after monsoon rains
  • Rarely fatal
  • Major outbreak in Reunion

    While the flu-like fever is painful, lasting from a few days to a couple of weeks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says no deaths from chikungunya have been conclusively proven in scientific literature.

    The virus is, however, believed to have led indirectly to scores of deaths on the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion during an outbreak which began in March 2005.

    More than a third of the population - 266,000 people - were infected, and 260 people died.

    The epidemic that began in Kenya in 2004 also spread to other Indian Ocean islands, including the Comoros, Mauritius, the Seychelles and Madagascar.

    In 2006, officials in India said the country was dealing with 1.3 million suspected cases and government doctors in Sri Lanka said pockets of the fever had been detected across the island, with some 5,000 people infected in the far north.

    A small outbreak occurred in Singapore in 2008.

    The name, chikungunya, comes from the Swahili for "that which bends up", reflecting the physique of a person suffering from the disease. According to the CDC, it was first isolated in the blood of a febrile patient in Tanzania in 1953. There is no known vaccine.


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