Outfoxing the mosquito-borne disease: A study of the “chikungunya” language in the South American city of Muiz

Dr. Susana Lloveras is an infectious disease physician who works at Hospital Muiz, one of the places in South America where the mosquito-borne virus has been on the increase. The joints in their feet and hands are very sore. The pain can get so bad that some have difficulty walking or even holding a cup of coffee.

“It affects the quality of life,” says Lloveras. “You are doing great.” And suddenly, you can’t move, you need another person help you to do the common task of every day.”

The worst symptom of the disease can be long-term joint pain. But new advances, including a study just published this week, may soon help us outfox this virus — whose name is pronounced “chicken-GOON-ya” and according to the World Health Organization, comes from the Kimakonde language, spoken in parts of Tanzania and Mozambique, and means “to become contorted.”

The case count in South America is almost a quarter of a million. The outbreak is at its fiercest in Paraguay, which has seen over 100,000 diagnoses.

She says that every day they receive patients with rikungunya, including some who have no travel history. It was the first time mosquitoes in Buenos Aires had transmitted the disease.

The disease’s footprint is growing. Nischay Mishra, a researcher at Columbia University, thinks chikungunya is a global concern. He says there are more chances that mosquitoes can survive, because of the climate changing and temperatures getting warmer.

Vaccination for chikungunya: How viruses make us sick, but what do they do? An analysis by Kielian and Mishra

It can be difficult for people to get rid of their joint pain despite the fact their immune systems are able to clear the virus.

“It’s early days,” says Kielian, “but it suggests this might be one mechanism by which the virus can get established, maybe in joint tissues. That may be important in causing the arthritis. We’ll see.

Now, in a new study conducted in mice and published in Nature Microbiology, Kielian and her colleagues found something that could bring us a step closer to solving this mystery.

Most viruses make us sick by turning our cells into virus-making machines. They release loads of new viral particles that can go on to infect new cells. Chikungunya does that, but it’s got another trick.

“The virus induces the infected cell to generate these very dramatic long extensions that can go from the infected cell to neighboring cells,” says Kielian.

“This information is very useful,” especially as it relates to vaccine development, says Mishra, who wasn’t involved in the study. The vaccine is going to deal with an alternative mechanism of infection and that is very important.

There are several vaccine efforts that are underway and one may be approved by the end of the year. It would be a welcome development in a place like Hospital Muñiz in Buenos Aires.

“We need a vaccine because this is another tool [to] treat this kind of disease,” says Dr. Lloveras. She adds that in the future, she and her team will need every tool they can get to fight all manner of mosquito-borne viruses, including chikungunya.