Mosquito-borne virus poses threat to Caribbean travelers – Eagle
July 20, 2014
Mosquito-borne virus poses threat to Caribbean travelers
In Dominican Republic, chikungunya cases spike; 1 case in seen Lawrence
jharmacinski@eagletribune.com
The Eagle Tribune
Sun Jul 20, 2014, 12:05 AM EDT
After a trip the Dominican Republic or elsewhere in the Caribbean, you return home suffering with a high fever, horrible joint pain, headache and fatigue.
Only a blood test will prove it, but you could have chikungunya (chik-en-gun-ye), a viral disease spread by mosquitoes.
Infections of the virus, which cannot be transmitted from human to human, continue to rise in the Caribbean — particularly in the Dominican Republic, a country from which many Lawrence residents hail and regularly travel to and from.
Some 28,000 new cases of the chikungunya virus were recorded in the Dominican Republic this past week adding to 135,000 cases documented in the country earlier in the month, according to figures released by the Pan American Health Organization.
Back here in Lawrence, one case of the virus has been documented locally at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center at 34 Haverhill St., said Dr. Geoffrey Pechinsky, medical director there.
The Lawrence case is one of 350 chikungunya cases documented throughout the United States. Just two have been pinpointed here in Massachusetts, with 121 cases in Puerto Rico and the rest elsewhere in the continental U.S., said Pechinsky, pointing to weekly statistics posted on July 15 by the Centers for Disease Control.
While there is no danger of catching the virus from a person with it here, those traveling to the Caribbean are at significant risk of being infected by a mosquito there. Travelers often take advantage of Caribbean travel during off-season summer months.
“That’s the biggest thing. Somebody who is traveling needs to be aware and take precautions,” said Pechinsky.
While chikungunya is a new term around here, outbreaks of the virus have occurred previously in Africa, Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and in islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans. In late 2012, chikungunye was found in the Caribbean for the first time, according to information provided by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
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