Via Yahoo! Voices, a post by Charles Simmins: New Illness Spreading Throughout Eastern Caribbean. Excerpt:
Public health authorities have anticipated the spread of new mosquito-borne illnesses from Africa and Asia to the Americas for many years. Chikungunya has been the most anticipated of these illnesses and what medical professionals feared has happened. In early Dec. 2012, the illness was confirmed on the French island of St. Martin in the eastern Caribbean. In five weeks it has spread to six nearby islands and possibly to the South American mainland.
As of Jan. 16, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is reporting 290 chikungunya cases. The government of Dominica announced on Jan. 16 that a patient on that island had been diagnosed with locally acquired chikungunya. Dominica lies between the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique which have outbreaks of the illness.
Here is the latest list of locations where chikungunya has been confirmed:
• St. Martin (French) - 201
• Martinique - 48
• Saint Barthélemy - 25
• Guadeloupe - 10
• British Virgin Islands (Jost Van Dyke island) - 3
• St. Maarten (Netherlands) - 2
• Dominica - 1
• French Guyana - 1 case imported from Martinique, 11 suspect cases
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are close to the islands where chikungunya is being found. The illness itself was first discovered in 1953 in the east Africa. It had spread, since that time, to most of central and southern Africa, and to Asia from Pakistan east to China and the Philippines. It has also spread to Europe where local outbreaks have been seen in France and Italy.