Chikungunya Fever Presenting as a Systemic Disease with Fever. Arthritis and Rash: Our Experience in Israel

Chikungunya fever (CHIK-F) has been increasingly documented among Western travelers returning from areas with chikungunya virus transmission, which are also popular tourist sites. We present three Israeli travelers who developed fever, maculopapular rash and long-standing arthralgias while visiting northern Indian states not known to be involved in the chikungunya fever epidemic. We also present an epidemiological review of the chikungunya epidemic over the past decades. Rare systemic manifestations of this disorder, like catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome (CAPS) and adult-onset Still's syndrome, are discussed. The present era of international travel poses a new diagnostic and epidemiologic challenge that demands increased awareness to the possibility of an exotic tropical infectious disease.