Pandemic fears sparked in China over chikungunya virus: What you need to know

New York Post

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00:00The videos coming out of China and spreading across social media are eerily familiar,

00:04reminiscent from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

00:09So what is happening? And do you need to worry?

00:11China is experiencing an outbreak of chikungunya, a painful mosquito-borne virus.

00:16It has rapidly spread to about 8,000 patients in just four weeks,

00:21mainly across China's Guangdong Province to the south,

00:24with the city of Foshan hit the hardest, according to the New York Times.

00:27On Monday, Hong Kong reported its first case.

00:31Infected residents are being sent to quarantine wards and hospitals,

00:35where they're placed in beds covered by mosquito nets,

00:38where they have to remain for a week or until they test negative.

00:42In a massive effort to curb its further spread,

00:45masked Chinese soldiers have been dousing public spaces with insecticide.

00:50Authorities have begun releasing elephant mosquitoes,

00:52whose larvae devour the smaller virus-carrying mosquitoes,

00:56and releasing mosquito-eating fish into Foshan's public ponds.

01:00Residents have been ordered to remove stagnant water where the mosquitoes breed from their homes

01:05and threaten with fines up to $1,400 if they refuse to comply, according to the BBC.

01:12Recent record downpours have led to perfect conditions for mosquitoes to breed in stagnant water.

01:16China is a huge country.

01:18The mosquito can grow with the size of a one-pound coin.

01:24A UK one-pound coin, there's all the clean water it requires.

01:28And every time it rains, you are going to have thousands, if not millions,

01:33of one-pound coin volumes of water that can grow the mosquitoes.

01:37The level of response has not been seen since COVID and showed just how jittery Chinese officials are

01:44about the potential for another major health crisis.

01:48Despite the fact that the swift response by the Chinese government has its citizens online,

01:53comparing the 2020 pandemic that killed millions of people,

01:57chikungunya is vastly different.

02:00Though the symptoms can be agonizing, the disease typically isn't deadly.

02:04It develops after a few days, the individual will get fever.

02:09Very much like dengue with headache, muscle aches, but the joint pains.

02:14The joint pains are very prominent.

02:16It can appear in any part of the joints and then it could even affect the small arms

02:21or small joints of the hands and thereafter it persists.

02:25The name chikungunya actually came from a Swahili dialect, which means to bend over.

02:30And the reason is because your joints are so painful, you have to bend over to relieve the pain.

02:36And that's how the disease got its name.

02:40Perhaps most significantly, it is not spread between humans.

02:43The only way of transmission is through the bites of infected Aedes mosquitoes.

02:48But that doesn't mean it can't spread rapidly and widely.

02:51I think the real driver of outbreaks at chikungunya and all that are travellers.

02:57The reason is because not everyone who gets infected with chikungunya virus would develop symptoms.

03:04So you could still be very well, but you're carrying the virus.

03:07And so when we, because of this increased rate of movement of people from one country to another,

03:13from one region to another, and made possible by long distance air travel.

03:19So you could get infected and say, you know, somewhere in Latin America,

03:23and then you hop on a plane and then fly all the way across, halfway across the world

03:27to get to another place with the virus in you.

03:30And when you land there and you get bitten by a mosquito,

03:33then you can then transmit the virus to the mosquito,

03:36who will then pass the virus on to other people who have not travelled out of the place.

03:41So I think that's probably the way that the virus got into China.

03:44The CDC on Friday issued a level two travel notice for those going to China

03:49as the disease continues to spread.

03:52Level two, which tells travellers to practice enhanced precautions,

03:57is on a warning scale of four, with four urging people to avoid all travel to the region.

04:03There is no known cure for the virus, but there are two approved vaccines in the US,

04:08which the CDC is urging Americans travelling to China to get.

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