The term "chikun­gun­ya" comes from the Ki­makonde di­alect and means "to be con­tort­ed" due to the bent ap­pear­ance of those who have it. So far, it's in­fect­ed about half a mil­lion peo­ple in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.If you are one of those un­for­tu­nate peo­ple, the bad news is that there are no an­tivi­ral med­i­cines to fight it–yet. But hope is on the hori­zon: an ex­per­i­men­tal vac­cine is get­ting good re­sults. A small, ear­ly clin­i­cal tri­al by re­searchers at the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Al­ler­gy and In­fec­tious Dis­eases (in Mary­land, USA) found in Au­gust that a new, ex­per­i­men­tal vac­cine was safe, and that it trig­gered a strong re­sponse from the im­mune sys­tem. (Lancet Jour­nal, Au­gust 15).

This isn't the first at­tempt at mak­ing a vac­cine, how­ev­er. Michaeleen Doucleff of NPR re­port­ed on Au­gust 18 that a team at the US Army Med­ical Re­search In­sti­tute of In­fec­tious Dis­eases, in the 1980s had al­ready cre­at­ed a vac­cine with a live, weak­ened ver­sion of the chikun­gun­ya virus. That vac­cine com­plet­ed a Phase Two clin­i­cal tri­al. But sci­en­tists stopped de­vel­op­ment be­cause there wasn't enough fund­ing.

The virus, how­ev­er is smart: it's mu­tat­ing and adapt­ing it­self to new hosts. Re­searchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Med­ical Branch at Galve­ston re­port­ed in June that "the In­di­an Ocean lin­eage of chikun­gun­ya virus that has spread to the In­di­an Ocean Basin, South­east Asia, Ocea­nia and Eu­rope con­tin­ues to mu­tate and adapt to de­vel­op high­er ef­fi­cien­cy for trans­mis­sion by the Asian tiger mos­qui­to."They found that "this mu­ta­tion in the In­di­an Ocean lin­eage oc­curred through a sin­gle adap­tive change in the virus' ge­net­ic code that al­ters one pro­tein in the en­ve­lope sur­round­ing the virus." So more peo­ple will be at risk of in­fec­tion, as not on­ly the Aedes ae­gyp­ti, but now the Asian tiger mos­qui­to can car­ry the virus.

Rid­ing it out

In the mean­while, pa­tients have lit­tle choice but to ride it out–en­dur­ing a week of fever­ish sweats, fa­tigue, and joint pains, some­times sear­ing aches that seem to at­tack whichev­er joints hap­pen to be their weak­est. And then there are the rash­es: very itchy ones, like mad ant bites.The good news? Chikun­gun­ya should on­ly last a week. It won't kill you. Con­ven­tion­al doc­tors can on­ly pre­scribe paracete­mol and sponge baths for the fever; and non-steroidal pain re­liev­ers such as di­clofenac, cele­cox­ib, naprox­en, or ibupro­fen for those aching joints. Be­yond that, it's a case of: stay in bed; get rest, do mild stretch­es; and drink lots of flu­ids.But there are lots of bush med­i­cines and home­o­path­ic reme­dies out there, said to help re­lieve the symp­toms of fever and pain.

From fever grass to­jack-ass bit­ters

Prof Comp­ton Seaforth is a not­ed T&T herbal chemist who, along with Dr Yuri Clement, Yas­min Baksh-Comeau and Ra­jesh Ra­goo of UWI, did a sur­vey in 2007-2008 to doc­u­ment the use of "cool­ing" lo­cal med­i­c­i­nal plants, as well as plants to treat fever, in 50 rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad. The sur­vey found that old­er women in the coun­try­side (who were the ones most­ly re­spon­si­ble for the fam­i­ly's heath) used 44 plant species for "cool­ing" pur­pos­es–help­ing the body which has fever, or has rash­es or hives, to achieve a bal­ance. Cat's claw, vervine, can­dle bush, caraille and shiny bush were the most used. For fever, the women al­so used lemon grass (fever grass) and jack­ass-bit­ters (sepi). The next step would be to test these vil­lage reme­dies sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly. They are not cures, just ways to ease fever and rash­es.

In­di­an sweets to the res­cue?

Dr Suresh Shah, an In­di­an doc­tor who claimed to cure 1,300 pa­tients dur­ing a ma­jor chikun­gun­ya out­break in In­dia eight years back, said: "The best way to treat chikun­gun­ya is to have home-made sweets like sukh­di, kheer, sheero and lots of liq­uids. Of course, parac­eta­mol should be tak­en, but the main fo­cus should be on home-made sweets." He said pa­tients need­ed en­er­gy as joint pain and vi­ral fever make the pa­tient weak.

Pa­paya leaf pow­ers

But per­haps the most in­trigu­ing pos­si­ble home­o­path­ic rem­e­dy is pa­paya leaf juice. Don't chug a whole glass: just a cou­ple ta­ble­spoon­fuls a day is said to work won­ders.The ayurvedic prac­ti­tion­er Va­ler­ian Men­don­ca swears by pa­paya leaves. In 2010, he post­ed this on his blog:"If you or any­one you know has dengue or chikun­gun­ya or any ill­ness which dras­ti­cal­ly re­duces the blood platelet count of the pa­tient, take one pa­paya leaf. Wash it in plain wa­ter. Dis­card the stem and the hard cen­tral veins in the leaf. Cut the green leafy por­tion in­to small pieces and run it through a mix­er or pound it to a paste. If it is too dry, add a tea­spoon of wa­ter, pound to a paste, squeeze the paste through a muslin cloth or a tea strain­er. You will get about two ta­ble­spoons of nasty tast­ing green liq­uid. Make the pa­tient drink it. The platelet count jumps with­in (three) hours." And as a re­sult, you can dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce the fever, and rad­i­cal­ly short­en the dis­ease length, he says.

The nat­ur­al health site www.nat­u­ral­health365.com sup­ports this view. It notes that the Japan­ese, the abo­rig­i­nals of Aus­tralia and many tra­di­tion­al herbal treat­ments have all used pa­paya leaves. It states:"The phy­tonu­tri­ent com­pounds in pa­paya leaves act in syn­er­gy to dis­play a strong an­tiox­i­dant and im­mune en­hanc­ing im­pact in the blood­stream. Pa­pain, al­ka­loids and phe­no­lic com­pounds are re­spon­si­ble for their pos­i­tive bi­o­log­i­cal ef­fects... The phe­no­lic com­pounds, caf­fe­ic acid, chloro­genic acid, quercetin and kaempfer­ol ex­hib­it po­tent an­tiox­i­dant ef­fect. Pa­paya leaves are al­so high in min­er­als like cal­ci­um, potas­si­um, sodi­um, mag­ne­sium, iron and man­ganese."

The health site goes on to state:"The best way to con­sume the pa­paya leaves is in the form of tea. Pre­pare a tea in­fu­sion, by adding ten leaves to half a gal­lon of wa­ter–al­low it to boil till the quan­ti­ty of wa­ter is de­creased to a quart. Cool and con­sume in small dos­es as need­ed to treat in­di­ges­tion, for detox­i­fy­ing, for im­mune-build­ing pur­pos­es or as a gen­er­al ton­ic."Con­ven­tion­al sci­ence has yet to re­search this. But an Au­gust 17 ar­ti­cle from Malaysia To­day re­port­ed on the pow­ers of the hum­ble pa­paya leaf. A study led by Dr Soobitha Suben­thran and team from the In­sti­tute for Med­ical Re­search in Kuala Lumpur found some re­mark­able pa­paya leaf juice heal­ing ef­fects for dengue (not chikun­gun­ya), the pa­per re­port­ed. The re­searchers dis­cov­ered that Car­i­ca pa­paya leaf ex­tract helped to sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease platelets in pa­tients with dengue fever.

So there may be some­thing to the pa­paya leaf's amaz­ing pow­ers to heal. But of course, the on­ly sure way to deal with Chikun­gun­ya is not to get it. That means stop­ping those pesky mos­qui­toes from reach­ing you, to bite you and in­fect you. See our ar­ti­cle to­mor­row on tips to do just that.�2 TO BE CON­TIN­UED

ChikV Facts

�2 It is a vi­ral dis­ease. You get it when an in­fect­ed mos­qui­to bites you.

�2 These same mos­qui­toes can trans­mit dengue, too, with some sim­i­lar symp­toms.

�2 Symp­toms start three to sev­en days af­ter be­ing bit­ten.

�2 Main symp­toms: high fever (40C, 104F); joint pains (low­er back, an­kle, knees, wrists, fin­gers).

�2 Oth­er symp­toms: joint swellings, headaches, mus­cle pains, rash­es, nau­sea, fa­tigue. Can af­fect eyes (con­junc­tivi­tis, eye pain). Can al­so af­fect the brain (al­tered men­tal states), the nerves (nerve pain). In very rare cas­es, can af­fect the heart (in­flam­ma­tion of the heart mus­cle, ir­reg­u­lar heart­beats).

�2 There are no an­tivi­ral med­i­cines.

�2 Rarely fa­tal. Most peo­ple re­cov­er in a week. Since 2005, one in 1,000 chikun­gun­ya virus in­fec­tions has re­sult­ed in a fa­tal dis­ease.

�2 The virus re­mains in your body for sev­en days and dur­ing this time, any mos­qui­toes that bite you can al­so be­come in­fect­ed–and bite oth­ers in your house­hold, pos­si­bly in­fect­ing them.

�2 Re­cov­ery con­fers life­long im­mu­ni­ty. (CDC and WHO)