JUNIPER PUBLISHERS-OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF CASE STUDIES
Chikungunya - A Persistent Pakistani Public Health Crisis
Authored by Amna Amad Siddiqui
Over the past few years, Pakistan has been under a
significant burden of various health crises--ranging from our persistent
battle with the polio virus to a boom in infectious outbreaks such as
that of Dengue Fever and Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever. Despite
multiple such challenges over the decade, presence of an ongoing
Chikungunya epidemic in Pakistan makes the inefficiency of our public
health system glaringly obvious.
A viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes (Aedes
aegypti and Aedes albopictus), Chikungunya was first isolated in
Pakistan in rodents and one human by Darvesh et al.[1]. Later, it was
detected in a number of individuals in Lahore amidst the dengue epidemic
of 2011 [2]. Since the official report of an outbreak in November 2016,
[3] cases of chikungunya have had an exponential increase with 405
reported cases in 2016 and a total of 4,868 cases in 2017, with majority
(4138) reported from Karachi while the rest from Tharparkar and other
districts of Sindh [4]. Although with a low mortality risk, infection
with the chikungunya virus can be chronic with systemic complications
and can, in rare case, prove to be fatal. Symptoms of this condition
mainly include fever and joint pain. Patients may also present with
muscle pain, headache, rash, nausea and fatigue. Joint pain in
particular can be debilitating and may last for years [5].
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