Monday, October 20, 2014

SPOT THE LIE: Costa Rica Confirms First Chikungunya Case Originating in Country

10/20/2014

SAN JOSE – The first case of the chikungunya virus to originate in Costa Rica has been confirmed, the Health Ministry said.

The patient is a 56-year-old woman who has not suffered any health complications, Health Ministry disease monitoring unit director Maria Ethel Trejos told Efe.

The Costa Rican Institute for Nutrition and Health Research and Education, or INCIENSA, confirmed the case, Trejos said.

The woman, who never traveled outside the country, went to a clinic in Parrita, a town in the central Pacific province of Puntarenas, with symptoms of the virus, including fever and pain in the limbs, Trejos said.

“She welcomed a foreigner at her beach house who got sick and was very probably bitten in his viral state by a mosquito that later bit her,” transmitting the virus, Trejos said.

The man arrived in Costa Rica from the Dominican Republic, where there has been an outbreak of chikungunya.

The woman has not experienced serious health problems and was not hospitalized, Trejos said.

Officials in Parrita stepped up efforts to eradicate mosquitoes in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.

Costa Rica had already registered 18 chikungunya cases, but they were all among people – 17 Dominicans and one Haitian – from other countries.

Chikungunya, which originated in Africa, is a viral disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is also the vector for dengue, and the Aedes albopictus mosquito.


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