US health officials have issued travel advisories for Americans planning trips to certain tropical countries amid outbreaks of an untreatable mosquito-borne disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Friday that it had issued a Level 2 travel advisory for Cuba, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Guangdong Province in southern China, advising Americans to “practice enhanced precautions” when visiting these areas.
Health officials say there is currently no treatment for chikungunya, but the disease can be prevented through a vaccine, and vaccination is recommended for travelers to affected areas.
The most common symptoms of the virus include fever and joint pain, although patients may also experience headache, muscle pain, joint swelling or a rash, according to health officials. Symptoms typically appear three to seven days after being bitten by an infected mosquito, and most people recover within a week.
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Tourists visit Varadero, Cuba, on September 21, 2018.
In severe cases, some may experience severe joint pain that lasts months or even years while others “may require hospitalization due to the risk of organ damage and death,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
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According to an October 3 announcement by the WHO, there were 445,000 suspected and confirmed cases of chikungunya and 155 deaths worldwide between January and September 2025.
In Bangladesh, the WHO reported 700 suspected cases of chikungunya in the capital, Dhaka, between January and September 2025, citing the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research.
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A worker sprays a residential area to prevent the spread of the mosquito-borne chikungunya disease on October 14, 2025, in Shenzhen, China’s Guangdong Province.
By the end of September, a total of 16,000 cases of locally transmitted chikungunya were confirmed in Guangdong Province, China, marking the largest documented outbreak of the disease in the country to date.
Between January and the end of September, 34 confirmed cases of chikungunya were reported in Cuba, and public health interventions were implemented to contain the outbreak.
In Sri Lanka, a total of 150 confirmed cases of chikungunya were reported between January 1 and the second week of March 2025, the WHO said, adding that the cases reportedly peaked in June.
Picture of a mosquito taken on August 23, 2016.
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The CDC has warned that Americans who travel to Brazil, Colombia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand may also face an increased risk of chikungunya infection, even if no outbreak is currently reported.
The United States has not seen any cases of locally acquired chikungunya in its states or territories since 2019.
Original article source: CDC warns Americans traveling to 4 countries about outbreak of untreatable mosquito-borne disease