In our world, in every ecosystem there are a millions of different types of viruses that exist. In this paper we are going to talk about one specific emerging arbovirus called Chikunganya virus. About thousands of people have been affected by Chikungunya virus throughout the world. During the years of 2005 and 2006, the virus altered over a millions of people in the Africa, Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Now, Chikungunya virus have spread to Europe, South American and North America. Chikungunya is a viral disease that is spread by mosquitoes. There are two type of mosquitos that spread this disease that we will talk further into in this paper. There is no signs or researches that the virus can be passed on or spread by contact from human to human. The nearness of mosquito breeding sites to human habitations is a major risk factor for Chikungunya. This disease shares a similar type of clinical signs with the dengue virus, therefore in locations where dengue is common, the virus can be misdiagnosed with the dengue virus. Once a person is affected by the virus it can lead to many symptoms but the most common symptoms can include muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash. As of today, there is no vaccine to cure Chikungunya virus. Treatment of chikungunya is concentrated in relieving the virus.
In this paper, we are going to learn everything about chikungunya virus starting with where it came from, how it expanded, the structure of its genome, and all the way until how to treat the virus. Chikungunya virus is known to be abbreviated as CHIKV The topics that we are going to discuss will be, the structure of the virus, the history of the virus, the vectors of the virus and how the vector reproduces, the symptoms of the virus, and some subtopics about the virus that we must know.
Chikungunya virus is known to be abbreviated as CHIKV. Chikungunya is an alphavirus which is categorized into the virus family Togaviridae. There are near 29 different alphaviruses that cause diseases in mammals and humans. Togaviridae belong to Group IV of the Barltimore classification of viruses. Togaviridae included genera such as Sindbis virus, which is a fever also; Eastern equine encephalitis which is also known as the sleeping sickness; Western equine encephalitis virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus which is a similar virus as the eastern equine encephalitis but attacks horses, donkeys and zebras; Ross River virus, semliki Fores. Chikungunya virus is part of the Semliki forest. Chikungunya is a positive single stranded RNA. This virus contains a range of 11,000 to 12,000 nucleotides and is enveloped with an icosahedral capsid; which means that the subunits are arranged in a hollow form, quasi spherical structure, with the genome with in. Icosahedron is usually define as containing twenty equilateral triangular faces surrounding the outside of the sphere. The external side of the virus is covered with glycoprotein spikes that serve as projections. The 5’ capped end of the chikungunya structure contain s a 7-methylguanosine which is a modified purine nucleobase, and the 3’ end is polyadenylated which is the addition of a poly(A) tail to a messenger RNA. The virus have a subgenomic positive strand RNA called 26SRNA that is form during replication, that is transcribed from a negative strand RNA intermediate. In chikungunya, the type of RNA acts as the mRNA for viral protein production.
Chikungunya virus has a diameter between sixty to seventy nm, it is spherical and enveloped. The structure consists of an envelope and a nucleocapsid. The chikungunya virus genome encodes for two polyproteins, which are the non structural polyprotein consisting of four proteins the nsP1, nsP2, nsP3, nsP4. The other polyprotein is the structural polyprotein, consisting of five proteins which are a capsid, E3, E2, 6K and E1. In structural polyprotein, The E1 and E2 glycoproteins are expected to form heterodimers that associate as trimeri spikes on the viral surface covering the surface evenly.

Chikungunya virus is a small (about 60–70 nm-diameter), spherical, enveloped, positive-strand RNA virus (see figure 1). Early 2006, the complete sequence of a chikungunya isolate from Reunion Island was made available through NCBI/ GenBank accession no. DQ443544.1. The virion consists of an envelope and a nucleocapsid. The chikungunya virus genome is 11,805 nucleotides long and encodes for two polyproteins – the non structural polyprotein consisting of four proteins (nsP1, nsP2, nsP3 and nsP4) and the structural polyprotein consisting of five proteins (Capsid, E3, E2, 6K and E1) (see figure 2). The 5’ end of the RNA molecule is capped with a 7-methylguanosine while the 3’ end is poly-adenylated. A subgenomic positive-strand RNA referred to as 26SRNA is transcribed from a negative-stranded RNA intermediate. This RNA serves as the mRNA for the synthesis of the viral structural proteins. Alphaviruses have conserved domains that play an important role in the regulation of viral RNA synthesis. These domains are found at the 5’ and 3’ ends as well as at the intergenic region. The E1 and E2 glycoproteins are expected to form heterodimers that associate as trimeric spikes on the viral surface covering the surface evenly. The envelope glycoproteins play a role in attachment to cells.