Research Article
Gowri sankar singaraju, Emani
Abstract
The present study was undertaken to study the oral manifestations in clinically diagnosed Chikungunya cases which has recent epidemic breakdown in India after 43 years. Methods: This study was conducted in patients consulted for/ admitted in Government and private hospitals in epidemic regions of Chitoor and Nellore districts of Andhra Pradesh, India for clinically diagnosed Chikungunya from January 2010 to March 2010. A total of 200 persons having the signs and symptoms of clinically diagnosed Chikungunya were examined. Those with the history of systemic illness in the past two years were eliminated and thus a final sample of 112 patients was taken for this study. Blood samples were drawn and sent to National Institute of Virology, Pune for the serological confirmation of the Chikungunya fever after following the set protocols. Serum analysis was not done on two patients due to insufficient sera so the statistical analysis was done for 110 patients only. Results: The results showed that clinically oral manifestations were present in 95% of the patients. Females seem to be more affected than males. A significant difference is observed in the different age groups for symptoms. In clinically diagnosed Chikungunya patients higher age group (> 50 years) were found with higher rate of severity and symptoms than lower age group (< 20 years). Conclusion: The oral signs and symptoms in affected patients is clinically significant as opposed to previous studies which were conducted during previous epidemics. The authors propose to introduce the new term “Gunya stomatitis” to this oral signs and symptoms observed in this patients