Chikungunya virus infection: First detection of imported and autochthonous cases in Panama

Abstract

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-borne pathogen that was only endemic in Africa and south Asia until 2005 and 2006, when the virus spread into the Indian Ocean islands, Europe, and Asia. Autochthonous CHIKV transmission in the Caribbean islands was reported in December of 2013. In Panama, two febrile cases were detected in May of 2014: one traveling from Haiti, and the other traveling from the Dominican Republic. After other imported cases were detected, the first autochthonous case was reported in August of the same year. We detected CHIKV viral RNA and isolated the virus from serum samples. The phylogenetic analysis of the two imported isolates and one autochthonous CHIKV isolate indicated that the viruses belong to the Asian lineage in the Caribbean clade and are related to viruses recently identified in Saint Martin island, British Virgin Islands, China, and the Philippines. Although the circulating CHIKV lineages in the Americas have not yet been described, our results suggest that the Asian lineage is circulating in most American countries reporting autochthonous infection.