Chikungunya virus: A short review

Chikungunya virus is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes chikungunya fever, a febrile illness associated with severe arthralgia and rash. Chikungunya virus is transmitted by culicine mosquitoes; Chikungunya virus replicates in the skin, disseminates to liver, muscle, joints, lymphoid tissue and brain, presumably through the blood. Laboratory diagnosis relies upon the detection of the virus on early samples and/or specific anti-CHIKV IgM and IgG on blood samples. For diagnosis, monitoring, detection and genotyping of CHIKV, conventional reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methods have been used. Regarding the detection of CHIKV-RNA, other teqniques based on RT-PCR involved qRT-PCR, A SYBR Green I based quantitative RT-PCR assay and DANP- RTPCR.