The Zhuhai Centre for Disease Control and Prevention urged residents to protect themselves against chikungunya fever in a statement yesterday. The mosquito-borne disease, which was first reported this year in Foshan, has since spread across the region, including to Macao.
According to the centre, chikungunya fever has reached all three districts in Zhuhai, with eight total affected neighbourhoods.
While no cases have been found in Hong Kong, the city is also making preparations in expectation of chikungunya fever reaching its shores. The director of the communicable disease branch of Hong Kong’s Department of Health, Au Ka-wing, said yesterday that the SAR has a medium to high chance of experiencing a local epidemic.
Describing the disease as “coming with a vengeance,” Au noted that residents’ propensity for travelling during the summer brings a heightened risk of imported chikungunya fever cases being brought into Hong Kong. The city remains on high alert, he said.
[See more: Macao ramps up preventive measures as regional chikungunya outbreak worsens]
To date, Guangdong province has seen over 6,100 reported cases of chikungunya fever, with over 4,000 recorded in Foshan. The city raised the public health alert to Level 3 yesterday.
Foshan has been trying to limit the disease’s continued spread by conducting nucleic acid tests on at-risk residents, as well as by releasing larva-eating fish into the city’s lakes.
Like dengue fever, chikungunya fever is transmitted by the Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. However, there is no evidence of human-to-human infection, according to Duan Leilei, a researcher of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
There have been five detected cases of chikungunya fever in Macao.
