Chikungunya Spreads Through the Caribbean

Chikungunya virus — an alphavirus — and the illness it causes have long been recognized in countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific oceans. Before December 2013, when locally spread infection was reported from Saint Martin, cases in the Western Hemisphere all involved travelers returning from endemic regions. Since that time, local transmission is known to have occurred in 17 countries or territories in the Caribbean and South America. As of May 30, 2014, 103,018 suspected and 4406 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported from that area — more than 95% of them in the Dominican Republic, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haiti, and Saint Martin.

Infection is spread mainly by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, both …