Chikungunya in Brazil, an Endless Epidemic

Abstract

This article examines how chikungunya virus disease is epidemiologically and politically invisible in Brazil, unlike other diseases related to the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, such as Zika, dengue, and yellow fever. It demonstrates the intricacy of identifying the presence of chikungunya, as its effects are generally materialised in pain, which is difficult to measure and quantify, and thus is invisible to medical and state bureaucracy. As with other chronic diseases, chikungunya transforms identities and social relations among those affected. By analysing the situation in Natal, in Northeast Brazil, and considering epidemics as social, economic, and political narratives as well as biomedical phenomena, the article asks how chikungunya might end when it has not even officially started.