Chikungunya Spreads in Southern China: What to Know

Thousands of people in southern China have been infected with a disease transmitted by mosquitoes in recent weeks, in what is considered one of the most notable epidemics of the disease since its first detection in the country almost two decades.

Chikungunya’s latest epidemic infected more than 7,000 in the Chinese city south of Foshan, with sporadic cases in other cities and municipalities near the province of Guangdong.

The epidemic is so severe that a Deputy Prime Minister visited a massively affected district in the city last week and “urged efforts to limit imported cases and prevent the spread of chikungunya inside and outside the affected regions”, according to the press organization published by the State, Xinhua. The rapid increase in infections in the province also prompted American centers for the control and prevention of diseases to issue a travel warning to warn visitors earlier this month.

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Local officials are now working to combat the spread of Chikungunya, using proven epidemic measures to respond to infections as well as more creative efforts, to reduce the population of mosquitoes that cause it.

Here’s what you need to know about the disease.

What is chikungunya?

Chikungunya is a disease caused by a virus of the same name. The virus, according to the World Health Organization, is generally transmitted to humans by infected female mosquito bites as AEDES AEGYPTI And Aedes Albopictus. These mosquito species are also known to transport other pathogenic pathogens, such as those that cause dengue and zika infections.

Chikungunya’s symptoms appear, on average, between four and eight days after a person bitten by an infected mosquito. These symptoms may include fever, fatigue and nausea, but chikungunya infection is characterized by severe joint pain that can last for months or years. The name Chikungunya itself is derived from a word in the Kimakonde language in southern Tanzania – where the disease was identified for the first time in 1952 – which means “what is leaning” and describes how people infected by it seem to be stolen because of the associated pain. “People cannot move because it is so painful. There are tears in the eyes,” said Time in 2014, Dr. Pilar Ramon-Pardo, an adviser from the World Health Organization.

But chikungunya cannot be transmitted between humans and is rarely a fatal disease. A study published in Nature In June, estimated that some 35.3 million are infected by the disease in 180 countries and territories per year, but only 3,700 deaths (0.01% of cases). WHO says infants and the elderly have a higher risk of contracting a serious form of the disease.

There is no cure for chikungunya and treatment depends on the management of symptoms.

To what extent are Chikungunya epidemics common?

After the emergence of Chikungunya in Tanzania, other African and Asia countries also detected the presence of the disease, according to WHO. Urban epidemics were recorded in Thailand in 1967 and India in the 1970s.

In 2004, a huge chikungunya epidemic was from East Africa, especially on Kenya Island, where it infected 70% of the island’s population. The disease then spread to other neighboring islands such as Maurice and Seychelles.

India had to face a generalized epidemic of the disease in 2006 when it recorded nearly 1.3 million suspected infections of Chikungunya, most of which came from the provinces of Karnataka and Maharashtra. That year, there was also a chikungunya epidemic in Sri Lanka, and the following years also saw epidemics in Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Thailand, infected thousands of people. As of May 4, more than 47,500 cases of chikungunya were reported in the territory of the French island of Reunion, and there has been a “high transmission” through the island since the start of the epidemic last year, according to WHO.

In the United States, the first cases acquired locally were reported in Florida, Texas, Porto Rico and the US Virgin Islands in 2014, according to the American CDC. In 2015, Chikungunya became a “national condition”. The WHO noted in 2016 that “the risk of large-scale flambés of the Chikungunya virus in the United States is considered low”, but the native transmission cycles could not be fully excluded.

From 2010 to 2019, China imported cases of Chikungunya – including clusters in Dongguan, Guangdong in 2010 and Ruili, Yunnan in 2019, according to the National Chinese Health Commission.

What is the severity of the current epidemic in China?

The first symptomatic case known in the chikungunya epidemic in China took place on June 16, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The last cases of the epidemic are concentrated in the district of Shunde of Foshan, a city of 9 million.

From July 27 to August 2, around 2,892 new local cases of Chikungunya were reported and 95% of the cases were in Foshan. The others were dispersed in other cities and municipalities in the region, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhongshan.

On August 4, Hong Kong, the Semi-Autonoma region and the international governments of Port China, reported its first imported case.

The Chinese CDC allocated the 2025 epidemic to imported cases.

“The virus propagating on a global scale, imported cases have inevitably reached China,” the CGTN Liu Qiyong, China CDC, the CGTN. “Given the established presence of local transmission vectors, in particular Aedes mosquitoes, these imported infections have fueled sustained local transmission cycles, leading to small -scale concentrated epidemics in affected regions.” The Chinese authorities have not developed the specific imported case which sparked the epidemic.

Kang Min, director of the Institute for the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases at the Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention Guangdong, warned that the current flood and typhoon season has also stimulated mosquito activity, complicating the prevention of diseases and control efforts.

In response to the epidemic, the Chinese authorities borrow from their COVVI-19 game book: carry out mass tests, isolate infected residents and disinfect entire neighborhoods.