chi·kun·gun·ya (ch ē′k n-g n y ə)
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n. An acute infectious disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus, characterized by fever, rash, and joint pain, and seen primarily in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Also called chicken guinea disease.
[Makonde (Bantu language of the region of Tanzania where an epidemic in the 1950s led to the first medical description of the disease) : chi-, sing. n. pref. + -kungunyala, to become contorted, fold up (so called because joint pain causes sufferers from the disease to assume a hunched posture).] |