Thread: Shortly After the Migrants… Chikungunya Arrives in Boston. Coincidence?

Shortly After the Migrants… Chikungunya Arrives in Boston. Coincidence?

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Dean Garrison


It would appear that the much talked about Chikungunya virus has hit the Boston metro area. There is no cure or treatment for the virus which is spread by mosquitoes.

It is ironic that cases of the virus have now been reported in Boston. Isn’t that one of the places we are sending these illegal immigrants? No connection has been made to those who crossed our southern border but it would not be the first time that a narrative was changed, or simply hidden, to advance an agenda. With those Brown Shirts in charge, we might never know.

In all fairness, the virus was already here. But we certainly do not need any help in spreading it by illegal immigrants who are not being given thorough medical exams before being shipped all over the country.

The Boston Globe reports:

Cases of chikungunya, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes in tropical climates, have been reported in Boston and surrounding communities among people returning from the Caribbean, state public health officials said Thursday.

The Boston Public Health Commission sent an alert to physicians Tuesday warning them to look out for symptoms of the illness, which causes severe fever and joint pain. Four cases have been reported just this week in Boston residents, and several cases have been confirmed elsewhere in New England during the past month.
The alert said patients who recently traveled to the Caribbean, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic, could be infected.

State health officials did not name the other communities that have seen cases, citing patient confidentiality.
Chikungunya is endemic to parts of Africa, Asia, southern Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but began appearing in the Caribbean in December. The federal Centers for Disease Control began identifying cases in US travelers earlier this year, with 129 cases reported by July 1 across 27 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

What is Chikungunya?

According to the CDC Chikungunya causes a painful and incurable condition:

Chikungunya (pronunciation: \chik-en-gun-ye click to hear pronunciation) virus is transmitted to people by mosquitoes. The most common symptoms of chikungunya virus infection are fever and joint pain. Other symptoms may include headache, muscle pain, joint swelling, or rash. Outbreaks have occurred in countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In late 2013, chikungunya virus was found for the first time in the Americas on islands in the Caribbean. Chikungunya virus is not currently found in the continental United States. There is a risk that the virus will be imported to new areas by infected travelers. There is no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat chikungunya virus infection. Travelers can protect themselves by preventing mosquito bites. When traveling to countries with chikungunya virus, use insect repellent, wear long sleeves and pants, and stay in places with air conditioning or that use window and door screens.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website needs to be updated because Chikungunya is here and seems to be a growing concern.

Chikungunya Can Be Fatal

Chikungunya can be fatal, as referenced by this CDC report, and it appears that the morality rate elsewhere has been as high as 4.9%:

According to Beesoon et al. (3), the fatality rate attributable to chikungunya infection was much higher on Mauritius: 743 deaths in excess of expected deaths led to a CFR of ≈4.5%, with 15,760 confirmed or suspected cases for 2005 and 2006 as reported in this letter. A similar CFR of 4.9% can be calculated for the city of Ahmedabad, India, during the 2006 chikungunya epidemic (4).

Another CDC report with mortality rates as low as 1 in 1000 was temporarily unavailable. But it is clear that the virus can lead to death.

It might be wise to start taking extra precautions against those pesky mosquitoes this summer.

http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/07...rrives-boston/

New Mosquito-Borne Virus Spreads in Latin America

By Ben Fox
SEPTEMBER
29
2014
An excruciating mosquito-borne illness that arrived less than a year ago in the Americas is raging across the region, leaping from the Caribbean to the Central and South American mainland, and infecting more than 1 million people. Some cases have already emerged in the United States.While the disease, called chikungunya, is usually not fatal, the epidemic has overwhelmed hospitals, cut economic productivity and caused its sufferers days of pain and misery. And the count of victims is soaring.

In El Salvador, health officials report nearly 30,000 suspected cases, up from 2,300 at the beginning of August, and hospitals are filled with people with the telltale signs of the illness, including joint pain so severe it can be hard to walk.

"The pain is unbelievable," said Catalino Castillo, a 39-year-old seeking treatment at a San Salvador hospital. "It's been 10 days and it won't let up."

Venezuelan officials reported at least 1,700 cases as of Friday, and the number is expected to rise. Neighboring Colombia has around 4,800 cases but the health ministry projects there will be nearly 700,000 by early 2015. Brazil has now recorded its first locally transmitted cases, which are distinct from those involving people who contracted the virus while traveling in an infected area.

Hardest hit has been the Dominican Republic, with half the cases reported in the Americas. According to the Pan American Health Organization, chikungunya has spread to at least two dozen countries and territories across the Western Hemisphere since the first case was registered in French St. Martin in late 2013.

There have been a few locally transmitted cases in the U.S., all in Florida, and it has the potential to spread farther, experts say, but Central and South America are particularly vulnerable. The chief factors are the prevalence of the main vector for the virus, the aedes aegypti mosquito, and the lack of immunity in a population that hasn't been hit with chikungunya in modern medical history, said Scott C. Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

"There are going to be some very large populations at risk down there, much larger than the Caribbean," Weaver said.

Chikungunya is a word that comes from the Makonde language of Tanzania in eastern Africa and translates roughly as "that which bends up," in reference to the severe arthritis-like ache in joints that causes sufferers to contort with pain. It's usually accompanied by a spiking fever and headache. There have been only 113 deaths linked to the region's outbreak, according to the most recent data, but chikungunya can be crippling.

Herman Slater, a 60-year-old gardener in Jamaica's capital of Kingston, said he was laid out for almost two weeks this month with unimaginable joint pain, hammer-pounding headaches and fevers that came in waves.

"I tell you, I was surprised by how painful it was. It was taking me five minutes to get out of bed, and then I could hardly even walk," Slater said. "My hands were so bad I couldn't open a bottle, couldn't comb my hair. Every night I was wet from sweat."

In acute cases, pain can last for months. Joanna Rivas, who works as a maid in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, said she has had joint pain since May, and her 12-year-old daughter's case is so severe the girl can't hold her pen at school. Both have been taking the pain reliever acetaminophen, the main treatment for chikungunya, which has no cure or vaccine.

Besides the suffering, chikungunya has caused economic damage with the cost of providing treatment and controlling mosquitoes and by absenteeism from work. A study by the Universidad Eugenio María de Hostos in the Dominican Republic found nearly 13 percent of businesses said they had people miss work because of chikungunya in June.

Authorities throughout the region have been spraying pesticide and encouraging people to remove water containers where mosquitoes can breed. Oxitec, a British company that has tested genetically modified aedys aegypti to combat dengue in Brazil, Cayman Islands and Panama, says it has received a surge of interest since the start of the outbreak.

Chikungunya, which has been known for decades in parts of Africa and Asia, is transmitted when a mosquito bites an infected person and then feeds on someone else. It may have found fertile ground in Latin America and the Caribbean because many people are outside in the daytime, when aedes aegypti bite, or lack adequate screens on their windows.

In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Erin Staples of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said access to air conditioning to keep mosquitoes at bay might also be a factor. During an outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue in 1999 along the Texas-Mexico border, aedes aegypti were three times as abundant on the U.S. side but the number of people infected with dengue was twice as high on the Mexican side.

Conditions vary widely in the region. Haiti, where many people live in flimsy shacks with little protection from mosquitoes, has been hit hard. In Venezuela, air conditioning is widespread but the country has a shortage of insect repellent and pesticide sprayers due to the country's economic problems.

Staples said past outbreaks have been known to affect around 30 percent of a population, so there is room for the epidemic to grow, although it's too early to accurately project how many will get sick or whether chikungunya will become endemic to the region like dengue.

The good news is that people seem to acquire immunity to all major strains.
"We do believe currently that if someone is unfortunate enough to get infected, they should not be infected again," Staples said.

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story....01IVX7S&page=1

They are not migrants! They are ILLEGALS. Migrants seek work but return home these people are here to stay!