Global expansion of chikungunya virus: mapping the 64-year history

Abstract

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that is emerging as a global threat because of the highly debilitating nature of the associated disease and unprecedented magnitude of its spread. Chikungunya originated in Africa and has since spread across the entire globe causing large numbers of epidemics that have infected millions of people in Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Europe, the Americas, and Pacific Islands. Phylogenetic analysis has identified four different genotypes of CHIKV: Asian, West African, East/Central/South African (ECSA), and Indian Ocean Lineage (IOL). In the absence of well-designed epidemiological studies, the aim of this review article was to summarize the global epidemiology of CHIKV and to provide baseline data for future research on the treatment, prevention, and control of this life-threatening disease.

Seroprevalence of Chikungunya among Febrile Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital

“…Major outbreaks that increased concerns about CHIKV occurred in India in 2005, where it affected 1.4 million people. More than one million cases of CHIKV infection were reported from different regions of India during January 2006 to August 2007, with most patients coming from Kerala and Tamil Nadu (Braira Wahida et al, 2017). Chikungunya is associated with joint pains lasting up to six months and the morbidity and disability caused due to chikungunya are enormous (Dikid et al, 2013).…”

Pathogenic Th1 responses in CHIKV‐induced inflammation and their modulation upon Plasmodium parasites co‐infection

“…The CHIKV outbreaks in Asia, the Indian Ocean islands and its recent introduction to the Americas and the Caribbean made clear the ability of arthritogenic alphaviruses to rapidly spread and cause epidemics on a global scale. This has been fueled by genomic mutations favoring virus ecological fit to new mosquito vectors and an exponential increase in international travelers to and from developing economies . Importantly, the expansion of CHIKV distribution and the establishment of local transmission hotspots in newly colonized areas pose a high risk of co‐infections with other highly prevalent tropical diseases.…”

“…Among the arthritogenic alphaviruses, research on CHIKV was the most extensive owing to the global epidemics since 2005 . The availability of mouse models that captures major features of human disease have generated a wealth of information .…”

Recent progress on chikungunya virus research

“…Data of other countries were obtained from PubMed publications (mainly from (Zeller et al, 2016;Wahid et al, 2017) and WHO official sites (WHO, 2017)). * Countries and regions with case number fewer than 100 or those documented by CDC without accurate numbers.…”