ATLANTA -- Chikungunya, a severe and sometimes deadly infectious disease that has devastated the islands of the Indian Ocean, has arrived in the United States.

Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota and at least a half-dozen other states have reported cases of travelers returning from visits to Asia and East Africa sick with the mosquito-borne virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Coupled with the annual movement of another 12 million refugees and immigrants. Immigration to the United States just from Africa -- the original source of the majority of new and re-emerging zoonoses, including chikungunya -- increased a staggering 670 percent from the 1980s to the 1990s..

People are moving; their food comes from all over. This is a small world."
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