CHIKUNGUNYA AND

DENGUE
Erin Moore and Tara Suhs
 Chikungunyais a tropical disease spread by
aedes mosquitoes.

Characteristics
 Fever

 Headache

 Rashes

 Extreme pain in joints

 Originally
thought to be nonfatal, but a more
severe form of the disease has been reported
on an island off the Indian Ocean
 Thevirus has been reemerging in multiple
places: 2001-2003 in Indonesia and 2005 in
India
 Thevirus’s mutation has improved its ability to
invade mosquito cells and to replicate
 Doctorsin India have reported that the most
severe cases of Chikungunya have
complications with the central nervous system
and renal system
 India
has a very weak public health system
along with very low funding for health
programs
 Malehealth workers are held responsible for
vector control, however 50% of their posts are
vacant
 Mostdeaths in India are not reported because
they occur at home or are intentionally not
reported due to the sensitivity of infectious
diseases. This means that deaths resulting from
Chikungunya in India are highly under-
reported.
 Local
doctors in India believe Chikungunya
has caused mortality among the elderly
population
What steps do you think could
be taken to help the prevention
of Chikungunya?
Precautions being taken
 Mosquito control- insecticide fogging and
larvicidal measures
 Print
media and television launching public
awareness campaigns
 Statesand city health departments reported
systematic surveys of mosquito breeding
carried out by teams going house to house
 Privatedoctors and nongovernmental
organizations have organized large camps to
treat affected people
Future Approaches
 Detailedinvestigation of the epidemic with a
focus on the mortality rate and complications
 India
and affected countries need strict
vector control and disease surveillance
 Community education for the prevention
 India
needs to rebuild its public-health
capacities
 International
agencies (WHO) need to map
epidemic and advise countries about possible
spread and dangers of this virus
STRENGTHS
 Gave many ideas for fighting this disease in
these countries
 Had many points to support the fact that
Chikungunya is reemerging as a more life
threatening disease (private doctors findings,
mutation)
WEAKNESSES
 Focuses mainly on India, doesn’t give many
facts or statistics about other countries
affected by Chikungunya
 No accurate number of deaths from this
disease is given, making it difficult to see how
prevalent it is
 Thisarticle was published in 2007 so the results
of the precautions that were taken by India is
unknown
The Ethnoecology of Dengue Fever

 Ethnoecology:
“Analysis of indigenous perceptions and linguistic
categories that frame a bioculturally described
environment “
 Ethnoecological model includes:
 Biomedical triad: vector,source,host
 Social relations: gender rolls
 Article introduces concept of “mala union”- lack of
political will, which in turn brings in historical and
political conditions
Dengue:
Biomedical perspective
 communicable (4 strains)
 Classic dengue: Nonfatal infection that causes bone-breaking
pain, headaches, fever, chills, rash and leads to debilitation
 Hemorrhagic and shock syndrome strains can be fatal
 Vector: Aedes aeygpti : periurban- typically in artificial water
receptacles
In Villa Francisca:
 Perception of Dengue Fever is very similar to biomedical, knew all
the symptoms though most did not know the transmission process
 Knowledge wasn’t the issue of why dengue was still prevalent in
the neighborhood

Gender rolls:
 Public health messages directed towards women in Dominican
Republic
 women in charge of water for cooking, drinking, cleaning water
 Men collected drums of water for bathing and washing clothes
Can prevention and control be
done successfully without
acknowledging politics and
historical context?

Author’s opinion is No. Ethnomedicine is deeply embedded

in a culture and is the result of of politics and history?
Prevention Protocols
 “cleaned” water- fanning to keep mosquitoes from settling,
sitting over night to let the water clear, adding either lemon or
charcoal
 Babies and the sick get purified water from the store

Control
 Spraying insecticides in the house
 Keeping children away from dirty water and the gaze of jealous
people
 Many in Villa Francisca felt this was ineffective because of mala
union/ the lack of effort done by the government- leads to lack
of community effort
 No community effort- no one cleaning shared things like latrines
Weakness:
 Sources based in early 1990s,
 Does not give any ideas to fix the lack of political will or inspire
community effort
 Does not explain behavior just provides insight into the
neighborhood
 Focuses solely on the neighborhood,Villa Francisca
Strengths and significance:
 Expanded the indigenous and biomedical views to include
gender rolls and historical perspective of leadership responsibility
 Showed importance of cultural and historical influence for
preventing and treating the spread of the disease
 Very specific and in depth research into a certain community
Application and Future research:
 Application for global health: take into account the biomedical
perspective and the immediate culture structure but also the
history and the politics to apply and administer prevention and
control effectively
 Future research: using the expanded ethnoecological model to
bridge indigenous and biomedical perspective in future studies
Is
it possible to apply prevention
and control techniques with lack of
political will present?
Works Cited
 Whiteford, Linda M. "The Ethnoecology of Dengue
Fever." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 11.2 (1997): 202-23. JSTOR
[JSTOR]. Web. 4 Oct. 2016
 Mavalankar, Dileep. Raman, Parvathy S.
“Chikungunya epidemic in India: A major public-
health disaster.” The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2007):
2-3. ResearchGate [ResearchGate]. Web. 4 Oct. 2016