Mayaro fever in the city of Manaus, Brazil, 2007-2008

Mayaro Alphavirus is an arbovirus that causes outbreaks of acute febrile illness in the Amazon region of South America. We show here the cases of Mayaro fever that occurred in 2007-2008, in Manaus, a large city and capital of the Amazonas State, in Western Brazilian Amazon. IgM antibodies to Mayaro virus (MAYV) were detected by an enzyme immunoassay using infected cell cultures as antigen in the sera of 33 patients from both genera and 6-65 years old. MAYV genome was also detected by RT-PCR in the blood of 1/33 of these patients. The patients presented mainly with headache, arthralgia, myalgia, ocular pain, and rash. These cases of Mayaro fever are likely to represent the tip of an iceberg, and probably a much greater number of cases occurred in Manaus in the study period.