Emerging in July in a province in western Cuba, the chikungunya virus has spread in recent weeks across the island, with the number of cases rising sharply, in the context of a serious economic crisis marked by shortages of medicine and food. “I feel sick everywhere” and “I can’t walk,” complained Pilar Alcantara, 81, who lives alone in Havana’s Jesus Maria neighborhood, from the sofa in her living room where she had been bedridden for several days.
This eighty-year-old man was one of the last people to contract the virus in his neighborhood, where several residents, who fell ill a month or two ago, still complain of side effects, especially joint pain, which is a characteristic feature of the disease. “Here, everyone is contaminated,” Eva Cristina Quiroga, 74, assured, while waiting at the entrance to her building where fumigation had just been carried out for the first time to fight virus-transmitting mosquitoes.
🦟 It’s (almost) the end of the arbovirus season: more than 800 local cases this year, the majority of which are #chikungunya.
For “chik”, the previous record was “explode”. Especially because the virus strain is well adapted to tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus). pic.twitter.com/vhMXqOwYsu
— Nicolas Berrod (@nicolasberrod) November 19, 2025
The chikungunya epidemic, which broke out in July in the province of Matanzas (west), which neighbors Havana, has spread to fifteen provinces of the country, where outbreaks of dengue, zika, oropouche and yellow fever have also been reported. Chikungunya “is the main arbovirus that is infecting us and affecting the entire country,” said the head of epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, Francisco Duran, on Thursday, who since the previous day has communicated daily on television the number of recorded cases.
According to the expert, more than 47,000 Cubans were diagnosed this week, double the number last week, “reflecting the complexity of this disease.” On Thursday, “627 new or suspected cases of the disease” were reported, but these figures do not reflect the severity of the epidemic, he admitted, because they only take into account patients who sought medical attention.
An island hit by Hurricane Melissa
Last week, the official said that about 30% of Cuba’s 9.7 million population had contracted chikungunya or dengue fever during the epidemic. For residents of the Jesus Maria neighborhood, repeated power outages and chronic shortages of food and medicine make it increasingly difficult for them to contract the disease, which can cause high fevers lasting several days.
You should “stay in bed, as I do,” because “here we lack medicine” to relieve the symptoms, said 61-year-old Fidela Freire. “You can’t even buy chickens” due to lack of money, he added. The chikungunya epidemic hit an island already weakened by a serious economic crisis, the worst in thirty years. The lack of foreign currency has eroded public services, particularly health, and preventive measures, such as fumigation, have had a devastating impact due to fuel shortages.
In the west of the island, hit by Hurricane Melissa three weeks ago, the situation is even worse, with more than 642 health centers damaged according to the UN. In the past, Cuba has faced major dengue fever epidemics. However, chikungunya is a new disease. The disease first appeared on the island in 2014, as part of a regional epidemic that primarily affected Brazil, Colombia, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
At that time, health authorities managed to quickly control a very small outbreak, located in Santiago de Cuba. This time, the epidemic got out of control due to “lack of hygiene, accumulation of waste, stagnant water” stored in water tanks in homes to compensate for the lack of running water, which has affected three million Cubans this year, according to authorities.
As of Thursday, twenty chikungunya patients were in critical condition, according to the Health Ministry. To date, no deaths have been officially reported. The epidemic further weakened the Cuban economy, which was already experiencing a massive wave of emigration and low levels of productivity.
“Now I work as much as I can because I have been prescribed complete rest,” said Pedro Gonzalez, a 59-year-old driver, who suffered serious side effects on his legs from the disease.
