BEWARE MOSQUITO –
May 14, 2025 – In a health alert, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA said people 60 years of age and older should skip getting Valneva-developed Ixchiq vaccine used to protect against chikungunya, a tropical disease. Outbreaks of chikungunya linked to mosquitoes have been reported in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and can be spread to unaffected areas by infected travelers.
People can become infected with the chikungunya virus when mosquitoes feed on another infected person and then bite them. According to the CDC, roughly 100-200 cases of chikungunya are reported annually among U.S. travelers.
