Local transmission of Chikungunya was first reported in the Americas on the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin (French part), on/ before Dec 13, 2013. Approximately six months later it had spread throughout the Caribbean and to many countries of the continental Americas. Chikungunya spread swiftly in spite of the existing national health administrations, regional agencies and public health professionals in various parts of the Region. Better Information Management (IM) and more available data can help the public, government administrators and health and other professionals throughout the Region to understand, further analyse and stop this epidemic.


There are two main regional public health agencies in the Americas: PAHO which is concerned with all the countries of the Americas and CARPHA which is concerned mostly with the twenty countries of the CARICOM trade bloc. Data were extracted from reports published by PAHO/ WHO and reports published by CARPHA, reformatted and separately combined with a GIS base map, to produce more informative maps, charts and timelines.