Guidelines on Clinical Management of Chikungunya Fever

Overview

Chikungunya is an emerging vector-borne disease of high public health significance in WHO’s South-East Asia Region. It has been reported from countries of South and East Africa, South Asia, South-East Asia and, in 2007, from Italy. In the South-East Asia Region, outbreaks have been reported from India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand. There have been massive outbreaks of chikungunya fever in recent years in India, and also in the island countries of the Indian Ocean. Maldives reported outbreaks of Chikungunya fever for the first time in December 2006. Although not a killer disease, high morbidity rates and prolonged polyarthritis lead to considerable disability in a proportion of the affected population and can cause substantial socioeconomic impact in affected countries.

The socioeconomic factors and public health inadequacies that facilitated the rapid spread of this infection continue to exist. As it is a new and emerging disease it has not received sufficient coverage yet in the medical curricula of Member States. Specific treatment is not available, and there is no vaccine for the prevention of chikungunya fever. It has therefore become imperative to develop guidelines, based on the limited clinical experience gathered from managing patients so far, for appropriate management of patients in communities and in health facilities. Experts engaged in managing patients with chikungunya fever in the Region were brought together by the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia to outline guidelines for managing various situations and stages of the disease. This publication is the end result of that exercise and is intended to assist health-care providers in planning and implementing appropriate care to patients with chikungunya fever according to their actual clinical conditions