Travel-related chikungunya cases in England climb nearly three-fold
According to the latest data from the UK Health Security Agency, there have been 73 cases of the virus reported in England between January and June. During the same period in 2024, there were only 27 cases.
The health agency said the 73 cases is the highest number recorded in this period to date.
The majority of the infected patients had reported traveling to Sri Lanka, India and Mauritius, where there were infections associated with outbreaks in Indian Ocean countries, it said.
Chikungunya is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes. Severe symptoms and death associated with the virus are rare, but can occur in babies and the elderly, especially those with serious health problems, according to the World Health Organization.
Despite its lack of fatality, the disease can still cause fever and joint pain, which the World Health Organization says can be debilitating and prolonged.
Other symptoms include joint swelling, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash. Two vaccines have been approved for use in several countries, including Britain.
"Chikungunya can be a nasty disease and we're seeing a worrying increase in cases among travelers returning to the UK," Dr. Philip Veal, consultant in Public Health at UKHSA, said in a statement.
"While this mosquito-borne infection is rarely fatal, it can causes severe joint and muscle pain, headaches, sensitivity to light and skin rashes. Thankfully, symptoms usually improve within a few weeks, but joint pain may last for months or longer."
According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, as of July, there have been 240,000 cases of the virus so far this year and 90 deaths in 16 countries.
France has tested positive for 30 cases and Italy for one. However, France's Reunion Island -- located in the Indian Ocean, to the east of Madagascar -- is battling an epidemic of the virus.
The Pacific Community, the principal scientific and technical organization supporting development in the Pacific region, said in a statement that the small island has confirmed 54,410 cases of the virus, including 28 deaths, so far this year.
"Health authorities are urging heightened vigilance for travelers to La Reunion," SPC said, "visitors are advised to take preventive measures against mosquito bites, including the use of insect repellent, wearing long-sleeved clothing and staying in accommodations with screened windows or air conditioning."
Earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel warning for Americans thinking of visiting southern China over an outbreak of chikungunya there.
The CDC states there are outbreaks in Bolivia, China's Guangdong Province, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Somalia and Sri Lanka.
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When the law was written, it only covered vaccines recommended for children. In 2023, the program expanded to include vaccines for pregnant women. Vaccines just for adults, like shingles, are not covered. COVID-19 vaccine claims go to another system for emergency countermeasures vaccines that has been widely criticized. These vaccines could be added to the program, as lawyers who bring claims there have advocated. These reform ideas are "friendly amendments" with bipartisan support. Kennedy has mentioned some of them, too. A complex system is hard to revolutionize Kennedy hasn't publicly stated enough details about his plan for the vaccine court to reveal the changes he intends to make. The first and least disruptive course of action would be to ask Congress to pass the bipartisan reforms noted above. But some of his comments suggest he may seek to dismantle it, not fix it. None of his options are straightforward, however, and consequences are hard to predict. 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The special masters deciding the cases found that none of the causation hypotheses put forward to connect autism and vaccines were reliable as medical or scientific theories. Much of Kennedy's ire is directed at the special masters, who he claims "prioritize the solvency" of the system "over their duty to compensate victims." But the special masters do not work for him. Rather, they are appointed by a majority of the judges in the Court of Federal Claims for four-year terms -- and those judges themselves have 15-year terms. Kennedy cannot legally remove any of them in the middle of their service to install new judges who share his views. Given that, he may seek to put conditions like autism on the list of presumed vaccine injuries, in effect overturning the special masters' decisions. Revising the list of recognized injuries to add ones without medical evidence is within Kennedy's powers, but it would still be difficult. It requires a long administrative process with feedback from an advisory committee and the public. Such revisions have historically been controversial, and are usually linked to major scientific reviews of their validity. Public health and medical groups are already mobilized against Kennedy's vaccine policy moves. If he failed to follow legally required procedures while adding new injuries to the list, he could be sued to stop the changes. Targeting vaccine manufacturers Kennedy could also lean on his newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to withdraw recommendations for certain vaccines, which would also remove them from eligibility in the vaccine compensation court. Lawsuits against manufacturers could then go straight to regular courts. On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services may have taken a step in this direction by announcing the revival of a childhood vaccine safety task force in response to a lawsuit by anti-vaccine activists. Kennedy has also supported legislation that would allow claims currently heard in vaccine court to go to regular courts. These drastic reforms could essentially dismantle the vaccine court. People claiming vaccine injuries could hope to win damages through personal injury lawsuits in the civil justice system instead of vaccine court, perhaps by convincing a jury or getting a settlement. These types of settlements were what prompted the creation of the vaccine court in the first place. But these lawsuits could be hard to win. There is a higher bar for scientific evidence in regular courts than in vaccine court, and plaintiffs would have to sue large corporations rather than file a government claim. Raising the idea of reforming the vaccine court has provoked strong reactions across the many groups with a stake in the program. It is a complex system with multiple constituents, and Kennedy's approaches so far pull in different directions. The push to revolutionize it will test the strength of its complex design, but the vaccine court may yet hold up. Anna Kirkland is a professor of women's and gender studies a the University of Michigan. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions in this commentary ae solely those of the author.
