{"id":3789,"date":"2025-08-17T01:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T01:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/3789\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T01:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T01:34:07","slug":"how-mosquito-borne-viruses-chikungunya-dengue-and-zika-got-their-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/3789\/","title":{"rendered":"How mosquito-borne viruses chikungunya, dengue and Zika got their names"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Chikungunya is on everybody\u2019s radar these days as cases increase significantly worldwide, including across Asia.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThat which bends up\u201d is what the virus\u2019s name means in Kimakonde (also known as Makonde), a Bantu language of the Makonde ethnic group from southeast Tanzania and northern Mozambique, deriving from the verb kungunyala \u201cto assume a contorted position\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The moniker makes reference to one of the hallmark symptoms of the disease: along with abrupt onset of high fever, headache, nausea, fatigue and skin rash, there is the characteristic prolonged debilitating joint pain, lasting months or even years \u2013 which leads to infected persons\u2019 contorted posture.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The name chikungunya has an origin in an African language because this mosquito-borne virus is traditionally maintained in a complex African zoonotic cycle, and was first described during a febrile illness outbreak in the province of Makonde in southern Tanzania in 1952.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Workers perform anti-mosquito measures outside Sau Mau Ping Shopping Centre in Hong Kong on August 12, 2025, amid warnings of a heightened risk of possible chikungunya fever transmissions. Photo: Jonathan Wong\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1e323641-ced3-425c-ab9f-8f40034077c8_8cac1d4a.jpg\" title=\"Workers perform anti-mosquito measures outside Sau Mau Ping Shopping Centre in Hong Kong on August 12, 2025, amid warnings of a heightened risk of possible chikungunya fever transmissions. Photo: Jonathan Wong\"\/>Workers perform anti-mosquito measures outside Sau Mau Ping Shopping Centre in Hong Kong on August 12, 2025, amid warnings of a heightened risk of possible chikungunya fever transmissions. Photo: Jonathan Wong<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Its existence actually dates further back. However, because symptomatically, chikungunya fever can be difficult to differentiate from dengue fever, the disease was previously considered and known as dengue, another febrile epidemic disease of the tropics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chikungunya is on everybody\u2019s radar these days as cases increase significantly worldwide, including across Asia. \u201cThat which bends&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[4207,4210,4204,4209,2786,4211,4197,4208,4198,18,4212,4205,135,4202,19,387,17,4201,4203,698,4200,4206,4199],"class_list":{"0":"post-3789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-aedes-aegypti","9":"tag-aedes-albopictus","10":"tag-africa","11":"tag-african","12":"tag-asia","13":"tag-british-medical-journal","14":"tag-chikungunya","15":"tag-dengue","16":"tag-dengue-fever","17":"tag-eire","18":"tag-gujarat","19":"tag-havana","20":"tag-health","21":"tag-hong-kong","22":"tag-ie","23":"tag-india","24":"tag-ireland","25":"tag-origins","26":"tag-outbreak","27":"tag-virus","28":"tag-words","29":"tag-zanzibar","30":"tag-zika"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}