My partner for the final project is Felipe Jaramillo. Since we will both be participating on the community health team, we decided to focus on a prevalent infectious disease in Nicaragua – specifically chikungunya. Shown below is a poster that we will be taking with us to help raise awareness about the relatively new disease.

Despite its notoriety among travelers, Chikungunya is relatively new to Latin America. In fact, the first case of the disease in Nicaragua was confirmed only in December of 2013! However, the chikungunya virus itself has been around for quite some time now. The strain was initially identified in 1952 in Tanzania, and has since then caused many outbreaks along the eastern equatorial border.

To the majority of us, chikungunya is a problematic health condition. To the Nicaraguans, however, chikungunya is just one of many inevitable mosquito-borne illnesses in the area. Without medical investigation, it is practically indistinguishable from a severe cold or another viral disease like dengue. Victims often report joint-pain, which is one of the defining characteristics of chikungunya. However, such a large percentage of the population living in the rural areas work in such tedious conditions that it’s impossible to allocate the source of pain or fatigue to one source. Consequentially, they often dismiss the early warning of the disease.

As we worked on this poster, Felipe told me some specifics about the attitude of the Siuna people towards mosquito-borne diseases. He observed that none of them took precautions to prevent mosquito bites; none of them wore insect repellent, or covered up their arms or legs. Arguably, this may have been due to a lack of access to resources. But even more likely is that the Nicaraguans have a high tolerance for these types of diseases. From dengue to malaria, they’ve experienced it all. Mosquito bites are a norm of life, as are associated illnesses. Nevertheless, Felipe and I believe that it is important to educate the people about the diseases that they face.

This is our PowerPoint:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XUaFE42EIrTl6QsmAeGML4h7R5tCNXe1gZYN4VwrzeA/edit#slide=id.p