Chikungunya

Chikungunya is a usually self-limiting condition due to a virus. It is important to exclude other dangerous conditions and symptomatic treatment is usually advocated

"The epidemic to be described occurred on the Makonde Plateau in the Southern Province of Tanganyika. It was clinically indistinguishable from dengue, if allowance is made for the inherent variability of that disease. Dengue has not been reported from the area before and no inhabitant can remember a similar epidemic. Owing to the distinctive severity of the joint pains and the sudden onset a local name was rapidly applied; the disease became known as chikungunya, meaning- "that which bends up". -Robinson Marion 1955

"The disease was at an early time given a Kimakonde name -- chikungunya. According to an educated local chief this word is derived from a root verb -- kungunyala -- meaning to dry up or become contorted, and signifies the cause of a contortion or folding. It is thought to be a new word only as applied to the disease, not as to its other uses which refer to the drying of leaves and the reaction of the sensitive plant"- W. H. R. Lumsden. 1955