Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry has taken steps to control Chickungunya now spreading in Kuruwita, Kiriella and Eheliyagoda DS divisions in the Ratnapura district, Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry spokesman said. He said the Ministry has implemented an action plan under the direction of Health Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva and deployed a special team of doctors to the affected areas. Over 75 blood samples were collected from the suspected patients. The Ministry has already supplied required drugs to the Eheliyagoda hospital.

Sri Lanka Health Ministry says that 500,000 families living in the war ravaged Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts are vulnerable to diseases spread by mosquitoes such as dengue, chikungunya and mal

The State government is ready with an action plan to prevent the recurrence of chikungunya and other epidemics, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy told the Assembly on Monday.

Researchers have developed the first animal model of the infection caused by chikungunya virus (CHIKV), an emerging arbovirus associated with large-scale epidemics that hit the Indian Ocean, seriously affecting the French Island of La Reunion in 2005, before spreading to India, and Italy in 2007. Using a mouse model, scientists of the Pasteur Institute and INSERM in France determined which tissues and cells are infected by the virus in both the mild and severe forms of the disease. They document their findings in an article published in the latest issue of the US online open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. With the model, the researchers show how after an initial phase of viral replication in the liver, the infection extends to the joints, muscles and skin

An increase in the incidence of chikungunya has been reported in certain pockets in the Ratnapura district and the Epidemiology Unit of the Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry has taken precautionary measures to prevent an epidemic, the chief government epidemiologist Dr. Nihal Abeysingha said yesterday. "We have found seven chikungunya cases out of 14 samples tested in Eratna in the Ratnapura district. The patients have been treated at the OPD and there is no cause for panic as the disease is not life-threatening,' he said.

reemergence of the chikungunya virus in India in 2005

a new diagnostic kit can distinguish dengue from chikungunya virus faster. Developed by the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvanantha

chikungunya has re-emerged in Maharashtra, like it had in 2006. This time round, Kolhapur is the worst-affected district with 22 cases reported in April and May, followed by Sangli with four

The Chikungunya virus has travelled from south India across the seven seas to the us, piggybacking on travellers to the subcontinent in 2005-06. The alarm was raised by the Centers for Disease