INTRODUCTION
Between May to July, Malaysian had been surprised by a ‘new’ communicable disease which carried a weird name, it called ‘Chikungunya’, the term is actually derived from the ‘Makonde’ word meaning “that which bends up” as referred to the stooped posture developed resulting of arthritic symptoms of the disease. It is belief that the chikngunya term is derived from Makonde root verb ‘kungunyala’ which bring the meaning of to dry up or become contorted. This Swahili word however had been repeated numerous printed sources it lead to the erroneous spellings forms and the term commonly including ‘Chicken guinea’, ‘Chicken gunaya’ and also ‘Chickengunya’.
1. About Chikungunya
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the communicable disease which falls under an ‘Insect-borne’ virus, some said that it is an ‘Arthropod-borne’ viruses (arboviruses) as the causative agents of some of the most important emerging infectious diseases and are responsible for significant global public health problems. Of this virus, the genus ‘Alphavirus’ belongs to the family ‘Togaviridae’ and the species in this genus cause disease from mild febrile illness to severe ‘polyarthritis’ to ‘encephalitis’. One alphavirus of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) can caused outbreaks associated with severe morbidity.
Traditionally, CHIKV causes a febrile illness similar to the dengue virus fever or infection. The hallmark feature of CHIKV disease is debilitating and prolonged arthralgic syndrome that primarily affects the peripheral small joints. During 2005-2007 explosive epidemics on the Indian Ocean Island and India, anecdotal cases of CHIKV, associated with deaths, encephalitis and neonatal infections.
2. Epidemiology of Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV)
The genus ‘Alphavirus’ consists of 29 distinct species that cause encephalitis, febrile illness with arthralgia or are not known to cause disease in humans. Electron microscopy studies of CHIKV in green...