Chennai, Aug. 30 -- Highlights:

* Chikungunya virus infection causes severe chronic joint pain that lasts for months to years

* A newly developed reporter system can detect and isolate cells harboring //viral RNA long after the initial infection

* This could lead to the development of novel therapies for controlling the chronic, painful, inflammatory condition

Chikungunya is caused by the chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and is characterized by severe joint pain, the underlying pathology of which is poorly understood. A new method using a reporter system for permanently marking CHIKV-infected cells has shed light on how the virus continues to cause joint pain for months or even years after the initial infection.

The study was conducted by r...