America's Getting a New Mosquito-Borne Disease

Imagine you're living in the American South and all of a sudden you develop a fever, some joint and muscle pain, a headache, nausea, fatigue, rash, and a mosquito bite. West Nile? Dengue? Put down the Shins album and get with the times, Grandpa—you might have the trendiest new mosquito-borne disease to show up in Dixie: chikungunya.

Chikungunya is described the World Health Organization as “a mosquito-borne viral disease that was first described during an outbreak in southern Tanzania in 1952. It is an RNA virus that belongs to the alphavirus genus of the family Togaviridae.”

On Tuesday, Tennessee health officials confirmed that they were investigating what could be the first case of chikungunya, a disease whose beautiful name, Dr. William Schaffner told The Tennessean, comes from an African language and means “bent over in pain.” The less-chauvinistic explanation is that it comes from the Kimakonde language and means “to become contorted,” in reference to the stooped appearance of sufferers with joint pain.

Whatever it means, by Thursday, health officials in Forsyth County, North Carolina had also confirmed that the virus was found in a patient.

As much as I love a good scare-mongering (I am media, fear my roar), though, this disease may not yet be America's to claim. The North Carolinian patient had recently visited the Caribbean, where, along with East Asia and Africa, the disease is typically found. While the disease just arrived last year, the Caribbean is currently in the midst of a big outbreak with more than 100,000 cases reported. Given the region's American proximity, it should come as little to no surprise that seven out of the eight cases of chikungunya in America were found in people who had just gotten back from there.

Roger Nasci, chief of the CDC's Arboviral Disease Branch in the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, told CNN that 25 to 28 cases of chikungunya appear in American travelers every year, and that "we haven't had any locally transmitted cases in the U.S. thus far."

Unfortunately, some public health officials believe its just a matter of time until we have not just that first locally transmitted case, but chikungunya as a matter of course. After all, its vector, the Asian tiger mosquito, or Aedes aegypti, is already tidily at home here in America, biting us during the day and spreading West Nile. Buggers.

Vanderbilt University professor James Crowe Jr., who is a member of the Chikungunya Task Force Global Virus Network, told The Tennessean that the disease could establish a foothold in the United States in the next year. “It’s just a matter of when, not if it will,” he said.

Okay, so that's sucks, but look at the silver lining: most patients recover fully. For the very unlucky, count on joint pain persisting for months or even years.