Virus Advances Through East Caribbean

[highplainsdem]

Source: NY Times

MIAMI — A painful mosquito-borne virus common in Africa and Asia has advanced quickly throughout the eastern Caribbean in the past two months, raising the prospect that a once-distant illness will become entrenched throughout the region, public health experts say.

Chikungunya fever, a viral disease similar to dengue, was first spotted in December on the French side of St. Martin and has now spread to seven other countries, the authorities said. About 3,700 people are confirmed or suspected of having contracted it.

It was the first time the malady was locally acquired in the Western Hemisphere. Experts say conditions are ripe for the illness to spread to Central and South America, but they say it is unlikely to affect the United States.

-snip-

Chikungunya (pronounced chik-en-GUN-ya) causes high fever and muscle pain, symptoms similar to those caused by dengue fever, which has swept the Caribbean for several years. While dengue can be fatal and chinkungunya rarely is, experts said the effects of chikungunya, such as pain in the small joints, tend to last longer, sometimes for months.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/world/americas/virus-advances-through-east-caribbean.html

[Gman]

1. Dengue affects South Texas

[NutmegYankee]

2. "pronounced chik-en-GUN-ya"

Sounds like the mutant offspring of a Chick-fil-a and NRA marriage.

[dembotoz]

5. now that was funny

[Submariner]

3. Dengue feels like you have been rolling around in fiberglass insulation

and getting that pink fiber stuff covering your skin. Itch, itch, itch with no preventative medicine or cure. In other words, "you're screwed."

[NickB79]

4. "unlikely to affect the United States."

Give it 10-20 years. By then climate change will ensure our temperatures will be high enough in summers to allow tropical diseases like this to spread far and wide.

[blkmusclmachine]

6. Another perk of climate change.

[jsr]

7. 117 cases identified or reported among US travelers

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2014/chapter-3-infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/chikungunya
Given the large CHIKV epidemics, high level of viremia in humans, and the worldwide distribution of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus, there is a risk of importation of chikungunya virus into new areas by infected travelers.