Two migrant workers from Southeast Asia have been confirmed to have chikungunya fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease, the Kaohsiung Department of Health said yesterday.
One of the patients is a 28-year-old woman from the Philippines living in Kaohsiung’s Nanzih District (楠梓) who had visited her hometown in the Philippines late last month, the department said.
She developed a fever, and started having joint and muscle pain on Tuesday last week, and was on Saturday diagnosed with chikungunya fever, it said.
The second patient is a 22-year-old Indonesian man living in Kaohsiung, who developed a fever on Thursday after returning from a trip to his home nation, the department said, adding that a blood test on Saturday confirmed that he also had contracted the chikungunya virus.
Possible mosquito breeding sites near the two workers’ homes have been disinfected, the department said.
The chikungunya virus is transmitted by two types of mosquitoes, Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, which also transmit the dengue and Zika viruses, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said.
The virus was first identified during an outbreak in southern Tanzania in 1952.
The name is derived from a word in the Kimakonde language, meaning “to become contorted,” in reference to the stooped posture of people with joint pain, or arthralgia.
Chikungunya is characterized by an abrupt onset of fever accompanied by joint pain.
Other symptoms include muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and skin rashes.
The incubation period of the virus is three to seven days.
Most patients recover fully, but joint pain might persist for several weeks or months in some cases. There is no cure for the disease and treatment is focused on relieving the symptoms.
Ninety-nine confirmed cases of chikungunya fever, all imported, have been recorded in Taiwan since the illness was recognized as a contagious disease in 2007, CDC data showed.
Most of the cases originated in Southeast Asia, it said.
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