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MADAGASCAR: DEADLY CHIKUNGUNYA VIRUS CONFIRMED March 7, 2006
Apunyu Bonny
A deadly mosquito-born chikungunya virus has been detected in Madagascar causing public panic.Atleast 180,000 people on the neighbouring Indian Ocean island of Reunion have been affected by the virus. -IRIN reported Monday.
Madagaster's minister of Health Jean Louis Robinson announced on Saturday that Madagascar was facing both an epidemic of dengue fever - a flu-like illness - and "very sporadic" cases of chikungunya, which has been linked to 93 deaths on Reunion.
Mean while, Dr Lamina Arthur, director of disease control at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Madagascar, told IRIN "the simultaneous existence of dengue and chikungunya make it very difficult to provide exact figures on [the prevalence of] each, as they exhibit nearly identical symptoms and are spread by the same mosquito [Aedes aegypti]."
chikungunya fever eversince 2005 has spread among Indian Ocean islands, beginning in Comoros and affecting Reunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Chikungunya ('that which bends up' in Kiswahili) is believed to have originated in Tanzania.