A Short Handbook of Infectious Diseases

Since its discovery in Tanganyika, Africa, in 1952, chikungunya virus outbreaks have occurred occasionally in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, but recent outbreaks have spread the disease over a wider range. The present outbreak in India began in end 2005 along the coasts of Andhra Pradesh. It subsequently affected Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and north India as far as Delhi. The disease was reported in a total of 16 states of the country in 2006 and within a period of 10 months of onset of the epidemic there were over 1.25 million suspected cases on chikungunya (the figure rising to 1.39 million by the end of the year). In 2007, till October there were 37,683 reported cases.In 2017, Bangladesh faced a massive occurrence of the disease. The currently ciculating strain of the virus is of the east/central African genotype and Aedes aegypti continues to be the major vector.