Alert in Dominican Republic for Chikungunya Fever in the Caribbean

Santo Domingo, December 20 (Prensa Latina) The Dominican Ministry of Public Health today maintains surveillance to the existence of a dozen cases of chikungunya fever in the Caribbean.

According to press reports, the ministry ordered measures at border crossings, ports and airports to prevent the entry of evil.

Symptoms of the disease, whose transmitters agents are Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, are high fever, headache, joints and muscles, and skin rashes.

There is no cure for the disease. Treatment is focused on relieving the symptoms.

The disease occurs in Africa, Asia and the Indian subcontinent. In recent decades mosquito vectors of chikungunya have spread to Europe and the Americas. In 2007, disease transmission was reported for the first time in Europe, in a localized outbreak in north-eastern Italy.

The World Health Organization confirmed from 6 to 12 December last first non-imported cases of the fever on the French side of the Caribbean island of St. Martin, in the Lesser Antilles, about 240 kilometers east of Puerto Rico.