The 2016-2017 Chikungunya Outbreak in Karachi

Introduction: Chikungunya is an incipient disease, caused by Chikungunya virus (CHKV) that belongs to genus alphavirus of the family Togaviridae. Materials and Methods: In this study, during an outbreak of CHKV in Dec 2016 in Karachi, Pakistan, samples were collected from patients presenting with fever, tiredness and pain in muscles and joints. Total 126 sera were tested for the presence of Chikungunya infection through ELISA and Real-time Reverse Transcriptase PCR assay. Results and Discussion: This study showed that approx 79.4% samples were positive for CHKV. To our knowledge, this is the first reported outbreak from last decades in which the presence of CHKV is confirmed in Karachi while affecting such large no. of individuals.. Conclusion: CHKV diagnosis should be considered by the scientists and clinicians as a differential diagnosis in febrile patients, and appropriate control strategies must be adopted for its surveillance.