[C]hikungunya infections continue to rise in Central America, with the Dominican Republic reporting half a million infections as of October 31. That’s 500,000 reservoirs for mosquitoes, which means the infection rate will probably continue to climb until everyone who is not protected with DEET or some other repellent is positive for the disease. The Pan American Health Organization released its most recent figures on Friday (Nov. 7, 2014), and the numbers are sobering. One of the most sinister aspects of chikungunya is that some patients suffer chronic symptoms for years, which provides long-term therapeutics income for pharmaceutical companies.
In June 2014, El Salvador reported locally transmitted chikungunya cases for the first time in Central America. Five months later we see El Salvador with a total of 93,000 cases. By far the biggest rise in any one country, the Central American country went from 16,443 suspected and confirmed cases the week ending Oct. 31 to 93,274 yesterday for an increase of nearly 77,000. […] In the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic, which hasn’t reported a case to the PAHO in some time, reported an additional 13,000 locally acquired cases during the past week, bringing the island’s total to 499,000.
Read more via El Salvador chikungunya cases near 100,000, Dominican Republic at half-a-million | Outbreak News Today.
