But there is also a need for a national programme of action to protect the population. Such a campaign must start at the airports and sea ports with declarations by people coming from countries where the virus is known to have spread and who may have had some possible exposure to it... It may be only a matter of time before the virus is transmitted into the local mosquito population from an individual who brought the virus into the country.
Given the travel patterns across the Caribbean and between north America and the Caribbean, it seems almost certain that this country will soon be dealing with a spread of the Chikungunya virus beyond the three cases which have been so far positively identified here. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Caribbean Public Health Agency have explained that the disease is spreading via bites from the Aedes aegypti and the Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, and is known to have reached numerous other Caribbean countries and parts of the US.
Without a known vaccine for the disease, the various agencies, including the Ministry of Health, have said preventing mosquito bites is really the only option open to people to help avoid the virus.
The impact of the disease is said to be even more severe than that of the dengue virus, which is carried by the same mosquitoes. Headaches, high fever, vomiting, joint pain and the like are the usual symptoms, and so far it has caused 18 deaths around the region.
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