You may have only recently heard of chikungunya, but Scott Weaver at UTMB has been studying it for 15 years. The virus began in Africa, spread to Asia, and just last year was found in the Caribbean and Latin America. Weaver says some travelers have brought the illness back to the U.S., like a Texas man from the Austin area, who recently travelled to the Caribbean. But the virus remained isolated. So far the virus doesn’t appear to have spread to mosquitoes here. But Weaver says it could easily happen, and soon. Weaver is developing a vaccine against the virus, but until it’s ready he says people should take all the usual precautions against mosquito bites, especially if traveling to the Caribbean or Latin America. The news also appears in BioNews Texas.