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Chikungunya
8 December 2022
Key facts
Chikungunya is a disease transmitted to humans by mosquitoes in Africa, Asia, and the Americas; sporadic outbreaks have been reported in other regions.
Dengue and Zika have similar symptoms to chikungunya, making chikungunya easy to misdiagnose.
Chikungunya causes fever and severe joint pain, which is often debilitating and varies in duration; other symptoms include joint swelling, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash.
There is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for chikungunya virus infections.
Due to the challenges in reporting and diagnosis, the number of people affected by chikungunya is underestimated.
Severe symptoms and deaths from chikungunya are rare and usually related to other coexisting health problems.
Overview
Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne viral disease caused by the chikungunya virus (CHIKV), an RNA virus in the alphavirus genus of the family Togaviridae. The name chikungunya derives from a word in the Kimakonde language, meaning “to become contorted”.
Distribution and outbreaks
CHIKV was first identified in the United Republic of Tanzania in 1952 and subsequently in other countries Africa and Asia (1). Urban outbreaks were first recorded in Thailand in 1967 and in India in the 1970s (2). 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. 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.
All regions with established populations of Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitoes have now experienced
