The signs come on shortly—acute fever, adopted by debilitating joint ache that may final for months. Although not often deadly, the chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne sickness, may be significantly extreme for high-risk people, together with newborns and older adults.
Whereas the virus is widespread in tropical and subtropical areas, together with Asia, Africa and South America, public well being officers have been monitoring reported infections in Europe and, in September, a confirmed case in Lengthy Island, New York.
Outbreaks of chikungunya have prompted the Facilities for Illness Management to challenge well being notices to vacationers sure for Bangladesh; Cuba; Guangdong Province, China; Kenya; Madagascar; Somalia; and Sri Lanka.
In Guangdong Province, an “unprecedented” outbreak lately prompted authorities officers in China to mandate quarantines for anybody suspected of being contaminated by the virus, spraying people with mosquito repellent and spraying impacted buildings and different areas with insecticide.
In a brand new examine, printed in Science Advances, researchers on the College of Notre Dame analyzed greater than 80 outbreaks of chikungunya virus to enhance prediction of future outbreaks and inform vaccine trial growth.
“Chikungunya outbreaks are unpredictable in each measurement and severity,” stated Alex Perkins, the Ann and Daniel Monahan Collegiate Professor of infectious illness epidemiology within the Division of Organic Sciences, and co-author of the examine. “You’ll be able to have one outbreak that infects only a few individuals, and one other in an identical setting that infects tens of 1000’s. That unpredictability is what makes public well being planning—and vaccine growth—so tough.”
For the examine, Alexander Meyer, a postdoctoral researcher in Perkins’ lab and lead creator of the examine, and a crew of researchers reconstructed and analyzed 86 chikungunya outbreaks, creating the biggest comparative dataset of its sort.
“As an alternative of outbreaks in isolation, many, all of which various in measurement and severity, allowed us to seek for patterns amongst them,” Meyer stated.
Chikungunya was first recognized within the Nineteen Fifties. Outbreaks have turn out to be more and more frequent and widespread, however they’re additionally sporadic and tough to foretell, posing a problem to public well being officers relating to planning for and stopping infections.
Adjustments in outbreaks of chikungunya, transmitted by bites from contaminated mosquitoes—Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus are the first vectors—and different mosquito-borne diseases are sometimes thought-about in relation to local weather change, as hotter, extra humid circumstances can promote mosquito exercise.
However Perkins stated this examine confirmed that local weather isn’t essentially a very powerful issue when making an attempt to foretell the severity of an outbreak of illness attributable to a virus like chikungunya.
“Local weather components like temperature and rainfall can inform us the place outbreaks are potential, however this examine reveals that they don’t assist very a lot in predicting how extreme they are going to be,” he stated. “Native circumstances matter—issues like housing high quality, mosquito density and the way communities reply. Some variation is solely attributable to likelihood. That randomness is a part of the story, too.”
At present, solely two vaccines for chikungunya have obtained regulatory approval—however they don’t seem to be broadly accessible in areas the place the virus is commonest.
That’s the reason having such a big, complete dataset is so useful relating to vaccine growth, Perkins stated.
To check for efficacy, vaccine makers want correct predictions of the place an outbreak would possibly happen earlier than it occurs, to conduct trials and monitor whether or not candidate vaccines are efficient.
The examine demonstrates how a extra complete evaluation of previous outbreaks might help public well being officers put together for future outbreaks, thereby defending susceptible populations and aiding vaccine growth.
Extra data: Alexander D. Meyer et al, Predictability of infectious illness outbreak severity: Chikungunya as a case examine, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt5419
