It seems that Chikungunya is spreading fast in Sri Lanka, according to ProMEDMail and the Daily News. So far 150 patients have been reported, of which some have been confirmed (presumably by ELISA). Authorities are giving the usual advice to the public to eliminate breeding site, which will not help them in the short run as adult infectious mosquitoes are flying around. According to the knowledgeable comment of Mod TY on ProMEDMail, this is the first report of local transmission of chikungunya in Sri Lanka in 2008. However, in January 2008 an imported case of chikungunya to Hong Kong was originated in Sri Lanka, indicating that transmission has occured in Sri Lanka prior to this report. Hopefully India will be spared from chikungunya this year, unlike in 2006 and 2007. If not, imported cases during the Northern Hemisphere summer will have the potential to start another local epidemic such as the one that occurred in Italy in 2007 in regions of Europe and the US where Aedes albopictus is prevalent.
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