New Mosquito-Borne Virus A Major Health Threat in US and Europe

Chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne disease vastly more unpleasant than West Nile virus, poses a new health threat to residents of the United States and Europe. Since being first discovered in Tanzania in 1952, it has spread well beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. Experts fear that the virus could spread globally now because it can be carried by the Asian tiger mosquito, which is found in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.