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Published On: Sat, Apr 26th, 2014

Chikungunya update with infectious disease journalist, Chuck Simmins

The chikungunya outbreak in the Western Hemisphere, which began with two “locally acquired” cases on the French side of St. Martin in early December 2013, has grown and spread dramatically ever since.

Image/CDC

Image/CDC

Freelance journalist, Charles Simmins, who has been covering the relatively new outbreak very thoroughly, joined me on today’s airing of Outbreak News This Week Radio Show.

Chuck started out with the latest numbers from the European Centre for Disease Control and the Pan-American Health Organization, which shows a total of 35, 547 confirmed and suspected cases (about 4,100 confirmed).

However, as Simmins points out, most countries are not testing anymore since it is known that chikungunya is already present, and not all the countries are reporting suspected cases.

The discussion went to the newest cases confirmed on the islands of St. Vincent and Antigua. Simmins says, “Not unexpected. The disease is spread by people, not the mosquito.”

Simmins went on to give a very thorough explanation of the two mosquito vectors for this virus, definitely worth a listen.  For more infectious disease news and information, visit and “like” the Infectious Disease News Facebook page .

I asked Simmins to discuss his two very good interviews on the topic. First is one with Dr. Kristy Murray who is conducting  a surveillance study at the Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine from April 1 to Oct. 31.

Simmins writes:

For the next seven months, a child who present at the Texas Children’s Hospital emergency department with a fever and has blood drawn will have additional testing performed on their specimen. Study researchers will test for the presence of antibodies to the West Nile virus, all four of the Dengue viruses and all the serotypes of the chikungunya virus. Murray said that the tests will show if the patient is currently fighting an infection by any of the viruses, or has had such an infection in the past.

More about the interview can be read at Prepping for chikungunya in the United States .

In addition, we discussed an interview he had with Dr. Scott Weaver, a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who in February predicted that locally acquired chikungunya would be seen in the US in the next 1-2 years. More about the interview can be read at Expert predicts chikungunya in U.S. in 12 to 24 months.

Simmins made some of his own predictions. Listen to the interview below.

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About the Author

- Writer, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch. Robert has been covering news in the areas of health, world news and politics for a variety of online news sources. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the website, Outbreak News Today and hosts the podcast, Outbreak News Interviews on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify Robert is politically Independent and a born again Christian Follow @bactiman63

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  1. Chikungunya update with infectious disease jour... says:

    […] The Global Dispatch Chikungunya update with infectious disease journalist, Chuck Simmins The Global Dispatch The chikungunya outbreak in the Western Hemisphere, which began with two “locally acquired” cases on the French side of St.  […]

  2. Mausy says:

    “The disease is spread by people, not the mosquito.” : this is not (completely) true.
    In country where chikungunya does not exist, this is true. The first vector is the infected human. But the second one IS the mosquito. Chikungunya virus can’t be transmit from human to human neither from mosquito to mosquito. One need the other.
    ONE Infected Human => MANY Infected Mosquitoes => Many Infected Humans => Many infected Mosquitoes and so on.
    This is the reason why chikungunya outbreak must be controlled and stopped in the first days of the first detection.
    In Dominican Republic, it is too late. One month has been lost between the first case and the first measures to control the outbreak. Now, the virus has spread from Barahona (far west of the coast) to Punta Cana (far east).

    Chik news daily updated on http://www.chikungunya.net

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