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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Chikungunya fever is caused by an arbovirus belonging to the Alphavirus genus of the Togaviridae family. It was first isolated in the Newala district of Tanzania in 1952–1953. Chikungunya virus is no stranger to the Indian subcontinent. It was first reported from Calcutta (Kolkata now) and was responsible for about 200 mortality3. Since then several outbreaks of Chikungunya fever have been documented from different parts of India. Chikungunya virus is transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes. Chikungunya virus infection is characterized by abrupt onset of fever, headache, rash, nausea, vomiting, myalgia and arthralgia. This retrospective study was carried out in Department of Microbiology, PMCH, Patna over 9 months. All the suspected cases with symptoms indicative of chikungunya fever visiting our department were included in our study. Confirmation of cases was carried out by detection of CHIKV IgM antibodies in serum using IgM Antibody capture ELISA Kit (NIV, Pune, India). Demographic details and clinical complaints of the patients coming positive for chikungunya were noted. Out of 226 serum samples, 72 (31.85%) were IgM positive. Largest group (44.44%) of the patients belonged to the age group 20-40 years, followed closely by 0-20 years. Among the 72 positive case, 44 (61.1%) were male and 28 (38.88%) were female. Most of the cases (77.77%) occurred in the month of September followed by August (16.66%). Majority of the positive cases were from urban areas.