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Chikungunya Strikes Back in Cuba

HAVANA TIMES – About a month ago, I had to go to the polyclinic to request a medical certificate to justify what was going to be an absence from my job. The reason? Persistent pain in almost all my joints, especially in my legs and fingers. It was not an unfamiliar ailment to me; I knew very well what illness it was.

In the final months of last year, Cuba was hit by what some specialists called a “syndemic”: the simultaneous and massive presence of several contagious diseases, caused in this case by viruses transmitted through Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. These are the so-called arboviruses, and there were four: Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, and Oropouche fever, a group of different illnesses originally from Africa, just like their insect vector. All struck at the same time.

Chikungunya predominated in the western part of the country, where I live. The name of the disease comes from an African language, in which it means “twisted legs.” It first causes an acute viral infection, with fever, but afterward the so-called secondary symptoms begin to dominate.

The autumn months of 2025 were pathetic: more than 90% of the people I know got chikungunya (roughly nine out of ten), and in the street you could see how people struggled with the simplest movements: walking, climbing stairs, getting onto a bus, doing so in a very characteristic way, because they looked like rusty old robots.

At the time, I didn’t go to the doctor. Only those considered more serious cases went to clinics. Hospitals were packed with patients, recovering people were quickly sent home, and health personnel were overwhelmed.

It could be said that the Cuban healthcare system collapsed for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is why I didn’t go to the doctor then: they had plenty of cases worse than mine. Another reason was more “selfish”: amid blackouts and streets full of garbage and leaking water........

© Havana Times