At Least 10,000 In Puerto Rico Have Come Down With Chikungunya Virus
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The virus is chikungunya, a mosquito-borne illness whose African name translates roughly as "bent in two" because of the severe joint and muscle pain it causes. Other symptoms include fever, headache, nausea and a rash. Some victims suffer arthritis-like joint pain for months.
The virus has circulated for years in Africa, South Asia and islands in the Indian Ocean, but it was largely unknown in the Western Hemisphere except by a relatively small number of tourists unfortunate enough to come down with it after returning home, said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
That changed a year ago, when the first case of chikungunya was reported on this side of the Atlantic. It was diagnosed last December on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. Since then, it has spread like wildfire. Carried by mosquitoes into populations with no natural immunity, chikungunya has sickened more than 776,000 people in the Caribbean, Central America and South America, according to the World Health Organization.
The first chikungunya case in Puerto Rico was reported in May. Since then, health officials there have diagnosed more than 10,000, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The real number of cases is likely to be far larger. Household tests of people who didn't go to the doctor found that 28% of those who didn't go to the doctor also tested positive for the virus, the CDC says.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/04/chikungunya-virus-spreading/19887811/