Dataset CHIKV Jaen y2023m02 [50]

<strong>The Chikungunya virus: A reemerging cause of acute febrile illness in the high jungle of northern Peru</strong> <strong>ABSTRACT</strong> <strong>Background</strong> The Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an emerging arthropod-borne virus (arbovirus) that causes undifferentiated acute febrile illness. Cases of CHIKV may be under reported in Peru, given the variety of difficulties for its diagnosis, such as lack of diagnostic tests in remote areas, passive characteristics of the epidemiological surveillance and co-circulation of other arthropod-borne pathogens. Therefore, we performed a study in the high jungle of northern Peru to identify the prevalence of CHIKV in febrile patients and describe their clinical characteristics <strong>Methods</strong> A cross sectional study was conducted in the province of Jaen, Cajamarca, located in the high jungle of northern Peru. Patients attending primary care health centers within Cajamarca’s Regional Health Direction were enrolled. This study was carried out as an aid for the national syndromic surveillance system for the diagnosis of arbovirosis in febrile patients, during the period between June 2020 through June 2021. Patients were included if they attended outpatient healthcare centers with a clinical diagnosis of acute febrile illness (AFI). Serum sample collection was performed on all patients and the diagnosis of CHIKV was performed using real-time RT-PCR and detection of IgM antibodies by ELISA assay. <strong>Results</strong> A total of 1047 patients with AFI were enrolled between June 2020 and June 2021. Identification of CHIKV was carried out in 130 patients/1047 (12.4%), of which 84/130 (64.6%) were diagnosed by RT-PCR, 42/130 (32.3%) by IgM ELISA detection and 4/130 (3.1%) by both assays. The majority of the patients with CHIKV infection corresponded to the 18-39 years old (46.9%), followed by the 40-59 years old (23.9%) and those with 60 years or older (12.3%). Also a greater proportion of female patients was identified (53.1%). The most common clinical symptoms in the whole study population were headache (85.6%), myalgias (71.3%) and arthralgias (64.9%). In the case of patients with CHIKV the most common symptoms were headache (84.6%), myalgias (72.3%) and arthralgias (65.0%). The majority of positive cases for CHIKV occurred during the months of May (23.1%), March (20.0%) and February (13.8%) of 2021. <strong>Conclusion</strong> In conclusion, we report a considerable frequency of CHIKV infections in patients with AFI from the high jungle in northern Peru. These findings should raise awareness that CHIKV is a pathogen with continuous transmission in different regions of Peru. Epidemiological surveillance should be strengthen with reliable diagnostic techniques, given that clinical symptoms may be nonspecific.