- Hello, Jeff - We have discussed the Chikungunya
Outbreak for well over a year. Although we did not continue posting
about Reunion Island, people might have felt that the virus was controlled
on the island.
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- This is not true, people are still becoming infected
and those who are elderly or have had immune system supressed as with HIV,
Malaria etal, have died.
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- As I have pointed out, this current strain of Chikungunya
virus is a particularly virulent strain and "different" from
past strains. The Chikungunya outbreak, now heading into its second year,
has even concerned scientists in the US and Europe where cases of the virus
have now appeared. Scientists fear that Chikungunya may become endemic
in the US and Europe in areas where the mosquito vectors are prevalent.
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- As you can see the outbreak in Reunion is still causing
the government to take extreme measures for mosquito control. It appears
nothing seems to be slowing this particular virus down.
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- Patty
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- Mosquito-Borne Killer On Reunion
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- By Andrew Simmonds on Reunion Island
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- EnglishAljazeea.net
- 12-8-6
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- Mosquitos are arguably the deadliest insects in the world
with malaria killing more than one million people each year.
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- But malaria is not the only disease they carry.
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- Chikungunya is spreading through the tropical regions
off the African Coast as far as India and more than one million people
have been infected with the disease in the last year.
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- In the Swahili language chikungunya means "bent
back" because people struck by the disease end up with a hunched back
and intense pain.
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- Al Jazeera travelled to Reunion Island, an overseas department
of France in the Indian Ocean, where the disease has killed 315 people
since it broke out in March 2005.
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- Tourism Devastated
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- Chinkungunya has put the tropical island into crisis.
Tens of thousands of people have fallen sick and old and vulnerable victims
have died. It has also devastated the tourism industry.
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- The disease is so much a part of life on the island that
a satirical pop song about it has hit the charts there. At night,
the streets are taken over by mobile teams spraying insecticide and by
day the French Army is deployed on patrols to continue the operation. In
the rural areas they are trying to eliminate mosquito larvae from anywhere
they can find standing water.
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- We met Louise Maillot who has been suffering from intense
pain in her legs and depression since chikungunya struck. "I'm
waiting to die," she told Al Jazeera. "I'm praying for the good
Lord to take me."
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- Patrick Labatt, a family doctor, was clear about the
task he faces. "We can't treat the disease itself but we
can relieve the pain with drugs," he said.
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- Dr Labatt said the disease itself is not fatal but anyone
with a weak heart, for example, may not survive.
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- Before Al Jazeera left the island we met Marie Aline,
a singer who says she can no longer perform because she has painful joints
and depression, months after chikungunya changed her life.
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- She lost her second child from a miscarriage that the
doctor told her was caused by the disease. Marie was writing a song.
The lyrics strike a different tone to the pop music she used to compose. "I'm
crying day and night," she wrote. "I'll never know who you look
like But I will fight to the end to know the truth about chikungunya.
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- "I'll never accept your loss and I'll never accept
this disease."
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A8E4C3BA-
AD70-440F-8276-03EC33D58D88.htm
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- Mutated Chikungunya Virus Caused Indian Ocean Epidemic
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- AFROL.com
- By Staff Writer
- 12-8-6
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- afrol News, 24 May - Researchers at the French Institut
Pasteur have managed to retrace the origin and evolution of the Chikungunya
virus that is causing a major epidemic in the Indian Ocean. Viral strains
isolated from Réunion and the Seychelles clearly demonstrated a
small mutation from its East African origin while passing from Comoros
to Réunion, aiding the virus to reproduce more aggressively in mosquitoes.
Around 275,000 persons have so far been infected during the current Chikungunya
outbreak.
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- The Chikungunya outbreak that started late last year
on the French-administered tourist paradise Réunion caught authorities
totally by surprise. Not only was the mosquito-borne disease alien to the
Indian Ocean island, but the speed of its spread was also unheard of. The
outbreak has caused 248,000 cases in Réunion since March 2005.
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- Now, researchers from the prestigious Pasteur Institute
have shed light on the unprecedented Chikungunya epidemic. Indeed, the
outbreak did not start on Réunion but on the Comoros archipelago
in early 2005. The French-administered island of Mayotte belongs to this
archipelago, and Mayotte is well connected with Réunion, the only
other major French island in this part of the Indian Ocean.
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- Analysing the genome of six viral strains isolated from
patients from Réunion and Seychelles - an island state close to
Comoros that by now has registered 8,976 cases of Chikungunya - the Parisian
scientists were able to trace the spread and "microevolution"
of the virus. A partial sequencing of one viral protein was also made from
127 patient samples from Reunion, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius (6,000
cases until now) and Mayotte (5,834 cases).
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- The study had shown that "the Indian Ocean viral
strains are closely related to each other and are related to East, Central
and South African strains isolated between 1952 and 2000," the researchers
concluded yesterday. "The viruses that emerged in the Indian Ocean
were therefore probably imported from the African continent." East
Africa is also the region where the virus is most known, and the name Chikungunya
origins in Tanzania.
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- "This scenario is compatible with the human population
exchanges between East Africa and the Comoros where the epidemic started
in early 2005," the Institute holds. "Moreover, changes that
occurred in the viral genome as the epidemic progressed, especially the
emergence and predominance of a particular genotype since September 2005,
suggest an adaptive evolution of the viral strains."
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- Sequencing of the complete genome of a viral strain isolated
from a patient in Réunion had revealed "several mutations causing
amino acid substitutions specific to this clinical isolate." Studies
are currently underway to establish whether these substitutions are linked
to the neuro-virulence of the Chikungunya virus, on the one hand, and to
greater efficiency of viral multiplication, on the other hand.
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- One of the "molecular signatures" of the virus,
which constitute its genetic fingerprints, is not found early on in the
epidemic, as the milder outbreak still was defined to the Comoros archipelago.
However, this "signature" had become "predominant"
in Réunion strains from September 2005, and therefore shortly before
the epidemic explosion.
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- The authors of the study suggest that "this signature
may confer an advantage and favour the multiplication of the virus"
in the mosquito Aedes albopictus, which then infects humans. The mutated
protein (E1) is in fact involved in attaching the virus to the mosquito's
cell membranes, the researchers found.
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- The magnitude of the epidemic in the Indian Ocean and
the description of new clinical forms of the disease has underlined "the
critical lack of understanding of the physiology of the disease and the
biology of the virus," the authors point out. The molecular data presented
in the study was said to be "a first step to bridge this gap of knowledge
and opens the way to functional studies." The study was supervised
by Sylvain Brisse and Isabelle Schuffenecker.
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- http://www.afrol.com/articles/19370
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-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
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- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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