Chik

Legregis Purnell

Senior Seminar Spring 2014

March 10, 2014

Dr. James Nienow

The Epidemiology of Vector-Borne Diseases: Chikungunya

In the fascinating world of science, epidemiology is an area of study used by laboratory scientists, statisticians, physicians, and other healthcare providers and public healthcare professionals to deal with diseases and other health characteristics and events. It is also used to tell us why a certain event or characteristic may occur and how it influence different populations. Scientifically, epidemiology is defined as the branch of medical sciences that deals with studying the occurrence, transmission, and control of epidemics, which are diseases that spread at a rapid rate from organism to organism (Wordpress, 2012). The spread of diseases that highly affect people, populations, communities, and ecosystems at different levels are usually studied through an area of epidemiology know as vector-borne diseases. A vector is any agent, whether it is a person, an animal, a microorganism, and in many cases, insects, that carries, as well as has the ability to spread, infectious pathogenic viruses, fungi, or bacteria. At the start of the twentieth century, it was said that epidemic Vector Borne diseases were seen to be amongst the most important of problems related to the public health department. Though there are many vectors that contribute to the spread of vector- Bourne diseases, it has been proven that insects are indeed the most common of all vectors, with Mosquitoes being among the top insects involved in spreading the more notable vector borne diseases. With the epidemiology of Vector Borne diseases being such a broad subject, we are going to break it down significantly and take a look

at an individual mosquito borne disease known as Chikungunya. In the paragraphs to follow we will take a look at the history of Chikungunya, the different studies on how the environment plays a role in its transmission, and the treatment...