Via ProMED-mail: Chikungunya - France ex Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Excerpt:
Since the beginning of July 2012, 2 chikungunya cases imported from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been diagnosed by the French Reference Laboratory, IRBA Marseille.
The 1st case is resident in Kinshasa, DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo]. She presented onset of symptoms (fever, headache, joint pains) on 1 Jun [2012], travelled to France on 3 Jul [2012] and attended an outpatient department on 10 Jul [2012] in Laveran military teaching hospital in Marseille (South of France) with persisting arthralgia. ELISA tests were unambiguously positive for both IgM and IgG anti-chikungunya.
The 2nd case spent 3 months in DRC (Kinshasa). Before heading to Kinshasa, she spent one day in the city of Brazzaville (Republic of Congo). She presented onset of symptoms on 25 Jun 2012 and returned to France on the same day. She attended the outpatient department of Villeneuve St George's hospital (Paris suburbs) on 5 Jul [2012] with severe headache, polyarthritis with liver damage. Her serology (ELISA) was strongly positive for [CHIK] IgM. For both cases additional tests (dengue, West Nile and Rift Valley fever) were negative.
In DRC, the last large chikungunya outbreak was described in 1999-2000 with more than 50 000 cases. In 2011, an outbreak with more than 11 000 cases was reported in the neighboring Republic of Congo (Brazzaville).
