Chikungunya is found to be caused by the chikungunya virus, which is classified in the genus Alphavirus and the family is Togaviridae. Aedes aegypti is the primary Aedes mosquito which is responsible for Chikungunya. It is spread by mosquito bites. Before the genome organization and replication strategy was been discovered, the chikungunya virus was placed in group-A and group-B of arboviruses, due to being an arthropod-borne virus and having single stranded positive-sense RNA genome. The chikungunya virus is believed to have originated in Africa about 200–300 years ago as shown by its molecular clock analysis.
We the human beings are found to be the reservoir or the primary source of chikungunya virus for Aedes mosquitoes. The chikungunya disease transmission is based on the mosquito, who bites an infected person and then further to someone else. Chikungunya is not a contagious disease and no infected person can directly spread the infection to anyone else. The most interesting fact about the vector is that these Aedes aegypti mosquitoes bite during the day time.
Surprisingly the dengue virus, just like chikungunya virus also get transmitted through same species of mosquito, Aedes aegypti and share same spatiotemporal territories. Both of themes are well-known to cause acute febrile illness with more or less identical symptoms in the early phase infection, but the clinical profiles differ as the infection progresses.
