Chikungunya virus is spread by mosquitos and affect humans with reservoirs in several animal species. It is often mistaken for malaria or Dengue. There are important evidence gaps in tackling this disease and therefore this open community is in place to connect research teams to share their experience, methods and recommendations for their findings.
Chikungunya is an arboviral disease first isolated in 1953 in Tanzania. In Asia and the Indian Ocean region, the main disease vectors are Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Both of which are particularly resilient and adaptable vectors. Their eggs are desiccation-resistant, meaning they remain viable during the dry season. Like many arboviruses, Chikungunya is maintained in both a sylvatic cycle in Africa and in a mosquito-human-mosquito in urban transmission. It can exist as both an endemic and epidemic virus. It circulates in rural Africa during an endemic state and breaks into an epidemic during peak rainy seasons of urban locations e.g. India. Prior to 2013, autochthonous transmission – human disease arising from within a region, not imported – was restricted to Africa and Asia. However, in December 2013, the first suspected local spread was described in the Carribean, which preceded epidemic spread through the tropical Americas. Between December 2013 and June 17, 2016, the Pan American Health Organization reported greater than 1.9 million suspected autochthonous transmission cases of CHIKV in the Americas and more than 3,400 travel-related cases in the United States.