Chikungunya Virus in the Caribbean: A Threat for All of the Americas

The first known autochthonous transmission of chikungu-nya virus (CHIKV) fever in the Western Hemisphere occurred in October 2013 in the French sector of the island of Saint Martin, approximately 150 miles east from Puerto Rico [1]. Chikungunya virus is a mosquito-borne arbovirus widely distributed in Africa, Southeast Asia, and India, but until the last decade it was responsible mainly for sporadic, limited outbreaks of illness [2–5]. Its recent epidemic spread through the Caribbean now poses a threat to the continental countries of South, Central, and North America [6–10]. VIROLOGY Chikungunya virus is a member of the Togaviridae family, belonging to the genus Alphavirus, and has 3 genogroup lineages that have evolved in different geographic regions [2–6].The virus was first isolated from a febrile patient dur