Epidemiology
Chikungunya virus is an alphavirus closely related to the o'nyong'nyong virus, the Ross River virus in Australia, and the viruses that cause eastern equine encephalitis and western equine encephalitis.
Three genotypes of this virus have been described: West African, East/Central/South African and Asian genotypes.
Chikungunya is generally spread through bites from Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, but recent research by the Pasteur Institute in Paris has suggested chikungunya virus strains in the 2005-2006 Reunion Island outbreak incurred a mutation that facilitated transmission by Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus).
Concurrent studies by arbovirologists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, confirmed definitively that enhanced chikungunya virus infection of A. albopictus was caused by a point mutation in one of the viral envelope genes (E1). Enhanced transmission of chikungunya virus by A. albopictus could mean an increased risk for chikungunya outbreaks in other areas where the Asian tiger mosquito is present. A recent epidemic in Italy was likely perpetuated by A. albopictus.
In Africa, chikungunya is spread via a sylvatic cycle in which the virus largely resides in other primates in between human outbreaks.
On 28 May 2009 in Changwat Trang of Thailand where the virus is endemic, the provincial hospital decided to deliver by Caesarean section a male baby from his chikungunya-infected mother, Khwanruethai Sutmueang, 28, a Trang native, to prevent mother-fetus virus transmission. However, after delivering the baby, the physicians discovered the baby was already infected with the virus, and put him into intensive care because the infection had left the baby unable to breathe by himself or to drink milk. The physicians presumed the virus might be able to be transmitted from a mother to her fetus, but without laboratory confirmation.
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