Cases of chikungunya virus infection in travellers returning to Spain from Haiti or Dominican Republic, April-June 2014

• Published in: Euro surveillance : bulletin européen sur les maladies transmissibles Vol. 19; no. 28; p. 20853
• Main Authors: Requena-Méndez, A, Garcia, C, Aldasoro, E, Vicente, J A, Martínez, M J, Pérez-Molina, J A, Calvo-Cano, A, Franco, L, Parrón, I, Molina, A, Ruiz, M, Álvarez, J, Sánchez-Seco, M P, Gascón, J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sweden Centre Europeen pour la Surveillance Epidemiologique du SIDA (European Centre for the Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS) 17.07.2014
• Subjects: Adult; Alphavirus Infections - diagnosis; Alphavirus Infections - epidemiology; Alphavirus Infections - virology; Chikungunya Fever; Chikungunya virus - genetics; Chikungunya virus - isolation & purification; Disease Outbreaks; Disease transmission; Dominican Republic; Female; Fever - etiology; Haiti; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Public health; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; RNA, Viral; Spain - epidemiology; Travel; Travel medicine; Viral infections; Dominican Republic; Haiti; Spain; Southern Europe
• ISSN: 1560-7917; 1025-496X; 1560-7917
• DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.28.20853

Ten cases of chikungunya were diagnosed in Spanish travellers returning from Haiti (n=2), the Dominican Republic (n=7) or from both countries (n=1) between April and June 2014. These cases remind clinicians to consider chikungunya in European travellers presenting with febrile illness and arthralgia, who are returning from the Caribbean region and Central America, particularly from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The presence of Aedes albopictus together with viraemic patients could potentially lead to autochthonous transmission of chikungunya virus in southern Europe.