The chikungunya situation in Central America has been dominated by El Salvador this year as the country has reported in excess of 135,000 cases in 2014 to date. The chikungunya case count in El Salvador dwarfed it’s neighbors on the isthmus accounting for 97 percent of all cases in the region.

Guatemala/CIA
Guatemala/CIA

It was only a matter of time before other countries in the area started reporting significant numbers of the mosquito borne virus. El Salvador’s neighbor to the north has reported a spike in cases.

The Guatemala Ministry of Health reports in their latest Epidemiology report (computer translated) that the country now has 21,859 autochthonous transmission cases. This is significantly up from what the Pan American Health Organization report on Dec. 12 (579 cases).

56.7 percent of the cases were reported from the Escuintla area with 12,387. Females have been more affected by the outbreak than men by more than 10 percent.

Related: Guatemalan syphilis experiment: In the name of public health?

Elsewhere in Central America, Costa Rica, which has only saw seven locally acquired chikungunya cases as of Dec. 12, has now increased to 185, according to the Costa Rica Ministry of Health (computer translated).

One local news report also noted that Costa Rica has seen at least two people with co-infection with chikungunya and dengue.

Guatemala’s neighbor to the north, Mexico, reported an addition 8 chikungunya cases during the past week bringing that total to 82 locally acquired cases.

The South American countries of Colombia and Venezuela have seen increases in cases during the past week. Currently, Colombia has reported 52,817 while Venezuela has reported 34,642 cases, accounting for all of the local transmission of chikungunya (87,459)  in the Andean region.

The number of cases in the Americas has increased by more than 34,000, bringing the total to 1,046,569 since the first autochthonous cases were reported on St Martin in December 2013.

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