First U.S. Chikungunya Virus Infections Take Hold
The mosquito-borne disease has established a U.S. foothold in Florida.
Two people in South Florida are the first to contract a debilitating mosquito-borne disease called chikungunya within the continental United States.
The disease, which causes severe joint pain but is rarely lethal, has spread rapidly throughout the Caribbean in recent months. Of the previous 234 cases reported in the continental U.S., all were in people who got mosquito bites while traveling. (Related: "Mosquitoes Carry Painful Chikungunya Disease to Americas.")
The two people, a 41-year-old woman in Miami and a 50-year-old man in Palm Beach County, had not traveled before getting sick, according to the Florida Department of Health.
Chikungunya (pronounced chick-un-GOON-ya) has infected more than 350,000 people across the Caribbean since it first arrived there from Asia in December, and killed
