![]() Patients at extremes of the age spectrum are at higher risk for severe disease. Most patients recover fully from the infection however, occasional cases of eye, heart, and neurological complications have been reported with CHIKV infections. In the absence of significant joint pain, symptoms in infected individuals are usually mild and the infection may go unrecognized. Other common signs and symptoms include joint swelling, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash. Since these symptoms overlap with other infections, including those with dengue and Zika viruses, cases can be misdiagnosed. The joint pain is often debilitating and usually lasts for a few days but may be prolonged, lasting for weeks, months or even years. It is characterized by an abrupt onset of fever, frequently accompanied by severe joint pain. In symptomatic patients, CHIKV disease onset is typically 4–8 days (range 2–12 days) after the bite of an infected mosquito. The virus again begins to replicate in this newly infected person and reaches high concentrations in their blood, at which point they can further infect other mosquitoes and perpetuate the transmission cycle. The virus then replicates in the mosquito over several days, gets to its salivary glands, and can be transmitted into a new human host when the mosquito bites them. ![]() When an uninfected mosquito feeds on a person who has CHIKV circulating in their blood, the mosquito can ingest the virus. They lay eggs in containers with standing water. These mosquitoes bite primarily during daylight hours. TransmissionĬhikungunya virus is transmitted by mosquitoes, most commonly Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti and Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus, which can also transmit dengue and Zika viruses. CHIKV has now been identified in over 110 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Transmission has been interrupted on islands where a high proportion of the population is infected and then immune however, transmission often persists in countries where large parts of the population have not yet been infected.Īll regions with established populations of Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitoes have now experienced local mosquito-borne transmission. Since 2004, outbreaks of CHIKV have become more frequent and widespread, caused partly due to viral adaptations allowing the virus to be spread more easily by Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. Urban outbreaks were first recorded in Thailand in 1967 and in India in the 1970s (2). Distribution and outbreaksĬHIKV was first identified in the United Republic of Tanzania in 1952 and subsequently in other countries Africa and Asia (1). The name chikungunya derives from a word in the Kimakonde language, meaning “to become contorted”. Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne viral disease caused by the chikungunya virus (CHIKV), an RNA virus in the alphavirus genus of the family Togaviridae.
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