Nearly 8000 people in southern China have fallen ill with chikungunya since mid-June, officials have said, although the outbreak seems to have plateaued after a battle to contain it.
The World Health Organization warned on 22 July that flare-ups of the mosquito-borne infection in Indian Ocean islands such as La Réunion and Mayotte were following a trajectory that fuelled a major global outbreak 20 years ago, affecting half a million people.1
Most cases in China have been mild with no deaths, said the Chinese Center for Disease Control (China CDC). This is typical for the painful but rarely fatal disease, usually spread by bites from Aedes mosquitoes—which are expanding their Chinese turf, aided by climate change.2
Early analysis of the first tranche of some 1600 patients in the outbreak epicentre of Shunde in Foshan, Guangdong Province, found that most presented with fever (86.8%) and joint pain (81.4%), and many presented with rashes (65.5%). About half had all three symptoms.3
Shunde, a low lying, monsoonal, subtropical boomtown of some 3.2 million people, manufactures many of the world’s microwave ovens and attracts plenty of regional business travel. It is thought to be where SARS first emerged in 2003.4
About 180 …
