RESEARCH ARTICLE


Chikungunya Fever: A New Concern For the Western Hemisphere



Jennifer Ann Marie Calder*, 1, 2, Donovan Norton Calder3, 4
1 New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA
2 Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
3 University Hospital of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies
4 Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ont, Canada


© 2015 Calder et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Correspondence: * Address correspondence to this author at the New York Medical College, School of Health Sciences and Practice, Department of Epidemiology and Community Health, 30 Hospital Oval Road, Valhalla, NY 10595, USA.Tel: 914-594-3075; Fax: 914-594-4853; E-mail: jennifer_calder@nymc.edu


Abstract

Chikungunya virus has spread from Tanzania and has caused autochthonous transmission throughout Africa and Asia, and most recently in Europe, and the Americas. Transmission into new geographical areas has been facilitated by many factors including international travel, genetic adaptation of the virus to the vectors, and a breakdown of vector control measures. The economic impact on affected countries may be severe as a result of the immediate effect on the healthcare services and loss of man-hours as well as the potential effect on tourism. Effective control will require early diagnosis and isolation of viremic persons as well as enhanced environmental measures. To stop transmission in the region will require a regional effort that involves public education and an interdisciplinary One Health approach.

Keywords: Arthritis, blood, Caribbean, chikungunya, cornea, uveitis, vector-borne, western hemisphere.