There was a big kerfluffle over chikungunya in my professional circle last year. The upper brass got concerned about an outbreak happening in the US, and pushed us ento's to monitor for it. The general consensus was that the fear was unfounded, and chikungunya is very unlikely to get a foothold in the 48 states—the climate just isn't right for it.
And when US personnel monitor for chikungunya in the Caribbean, where it's actually endemic, the locals generally react along the lines of "Chickungunya? Who cares about chikungunya? I want to know what you're doing about dengue."
Yeah, it's a months-old thing at this point. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it before.
Chikungunya is only very rarely fatal—then only when exacerbated by age or other serious illnesses—and is found primarily in southern Asia and central to east Africa. Only a handful of cases have been reported in the US, and while the symptoms are remarkably unpleasant, it's not like mononucleosis where you're down for two months: It lasts three to seven days, and chronic aftereffects, while not unheard of, are roughly as rare as deaths.
Yeah this sounds like less of a concern than normal flu season. "Brain swelling" makes for sensational headlines, but like any other symptom it's situational.
Only four of three hundred thousand died of encephalitis after the outbreak in Réunion, according to that article. They are leading with something that literally happened 0.01333% of the time—and even if you're saying that one in six of the people who got encephalitis following their chikungunya infection, the number of people who had that symptom is still 0.08%. More people by percentage die of the flu every year in America, if I am not mistaken.
Honestly, chikungunya sounds like the best excuse to get off work for a week ever. "Sorry, boss. Can't move and my skin's all yellow and spotty. Doctor says it'll be a week—" *soap opera comes back on* "—OH NO. Talk later when I feel less..." *hangs up*
Look at where the flu is on that list. There's only one category above it that even contains other contagious diseases, and it lumps together a lot of them. Regular-ass flu still remains one of our most deadly contagious diseases by far.
Apparently the usual death rate for chikungunya is only slightly lower than 0.1% but it's always from complications or interactions with other conditions that only occur when you either have something else or are otherwise immunocompromised.
well, kinda. rare diseases can be scary but that's mainly because you probably didn't hear that a flu outbreak killed more people than wwi. it's kinda hard to wrap one's head around
It's also more difficult to put into perspective because we've all had the flu, and other than a few days of feeling like shit it wasn't really that bad. It's not always immediately obvious that the death tolls for that stuff tends to come from elderly, homeless, or very young.
Like, all that swine flu bullshit that got hyped to hell and back? It wound up being several times less deadly than regular flu.
Swine flu also resulted in the meaningless mass slaughter of pigs in numerous countries, so this sort of hysteria can do very real damage.
That said: AU, did you read the article? I don't think you're necessarily a schmuck but I am unsure of how you could have missed the "4 of 24 in 300,000" part had you even skimmed the article.
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Chikungunya is only very rarely fatal—then only when exacerbated by age or other serious illnesses—and is found primarily in southern Asia and central to east Africa. Only a handful of cases have been reported in the US, and while the symptoms are remarkably unpleasant, it's not like mononucleosis where you're down for two months: It lasts three to seven days, and chronic aftereffects, while not unheard of, are roughly as rare as deaths.
That said: AU, did you read the article? I don't think you're necessarily a schmuck but I am unsure of how you could have missed the "4 of 24 in 300,000" part had you even skimmed the article.