Chikungunya
You are probably wondering what that is. Well, it’s not a swear word or some remote places that you’ve never heard of. Chikungunya is Swahili for “that which bends up”, and is a disease (a.k.a. Buggy Creek disease) that is brought by mosquitoes.
Common symptomns are sudden severe headache, chills, fever (>40°C,104°F), joint and muscle pain. Although not deadly in normal cases - recovery within a week - patients may suffer joint pains for months.
Mauritius is the latest country to be hit by it. The latest official figure mentioned about 2000 cases. It’s still low compared to the neighbouring French colony (Reunion Island) who counts over 100,000 victims so far. I had been joking with a French girl a few weeks ago about the French military landing in Reunion Is to help combat this problem there. Were the army going to use spray insect killer cans and swat them with bats? I thought that was funny.
I live on the ground floor of the building, and day and night these little insects feast on my blood. It’s too hot and stuffy if you don’t open the windows - it’s 26C in my room. Good thing that the capital has no known case to date. Haha! (Edited to add: Actually my aunt did get it last year and she lives in the capital, and my cousin and her newly-wed husband got it this month! Oh oh!)
I guess the epidemy will recede as winter comes in, but meanwhile, the tourist economy is likely to suffer a blow, especially as one of the French tv stations broadcasted in prime newstime that Mauritius was a vector country. Furthermore, it’s been raining almost daily for the last couple of weeks. That sucks as I don’t feel like going out in that kind of weather.
Posted: February 22nd, 2006 under Mauritius.