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Review
. 2016 Jan 19:5:F1000 Faculty Rev-82.
doi: 10.12688/f1000research.7171.1. eCollection 2016.

Chikungunya: epidemiology

Lyle R Petersen  1 , Ann M Powers  1
Affiliations
Review

Chikungunya: epidemiology

Lyle R Petersen et al. F1000Res. .

Abstract

Chikungunya virus is a mosquito-borne alphavirus that causes fever and debilitating joint pains in humans. Joint pains may last months or years. It is vectored primarily by the tropical and sub-tropical mosquito, Aedes aegypti, but is also found to be transmitted by Aedes albopictus, a mosquito species that can also be found in more temperate climates. In recent years, the virus has risen from relative obscurity to become a global public health menace affecting millions of persons throughout the tropical and sub-tropical world and, as such, has also become a frequent cause of travel-associated febrile illness. In this review, we discuss our current understanding of the biological and sociological underpinnings of its emergence and its future global outlook.

Keywords: Chikungunya; alphavirus; mosquito.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

No competing interests were disclosed.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Number of countries in the Americas with local chikungunya transmission and number of cases reported to the Pan American Health Organization, by month, December 2013–September 2015.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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