Pan American Health organization 748,403 chikungunya cases as of October 10

Pan American Health organization 748,403 chikungunya cases as of October 10. HT: Crof.

PAHO has updated its Chikungunya numbers. (Click through the link and download the PDF in the upper right corner of the page.) It's becoming an increasingly irrelevant document.

Ostensibly this brings us up to week 41, and the total is now 748,403 (suspected) cases. They're suspected because no one bothers to test for it now.

But they're also suspect numbers because so many of them are weeks or even months behind.

The US *is at week 41, all right, with 11 locally acquired cases and 1,326 imported. But Canada hasn't troubled to report since week 32, when it had 8 imported cases.

Where the disease is rapidly spreading, the Dominican Republic counts 486,306—as of week 38. Haiti next door remains The Land That Time Forgot, stubbornly stuck in week 28 and 64,695 cases.

So it goes: Cuba, week 33; Puerto Rico, week 37; Dominica, week 28; Grenada, week 26. Colombia is almost up to date at week 40 and 6,092 cases, as is Ecuador with just one imported case. Jamaica's at week 40 with 325 cases, but given the "Chik-V" political uproar there, the real number must be much higher.

The disparity in updates might be tolerable if PAHO at least bothered to explain why some countries don't report promptly. 

Three-quarters of a million cases since last December? I wouldn't be surprised if the true number were double that or even higher.

*Hmmm.....Just think when Chik-V gets hold in the U.S. Wetlands.