In 2006, an outbreak of chikungunya fever swept over a number of islands in the Indian Ocean and India. Drs. Rémi Charrel, Xavier de Lamballerie, and Didier Raoult write that the chikungunya outbreak is an example of the abrupt expression of vectorborne diseases in the global village. In 2006, an outbreak of chikungunya fever — an arthralgic disease caused by a mosquito-borne alphavirus — swept over a number of islands in the Indian Ocean (the Comoros, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Madagascar, Mayotte, and Reunion). In Reunion, which has a population of 770,000, there were 265,000 clinical cases (an incidence of 34%), and the disease was implicated in 237 deaths (about 1 per 1000 clinical cases); a recent report by Reunion health authorities indicated that the seroprevalence was 35%, with very few asymptomatic cases. The epidemic had started with outbreaks in Kenya in 2004 and the Comoros early in . . .