Introduction:

The acute infection by Chikungunya generates a high burden of illness and disability mainly due to polyarthralgias in acute phase and artritis in chronic phase. However, it presents symptoms similar to other arboviruses, specially like dengue, which difficults its diagnosis.

Objective:

To characterize the clinical manifestations of the acute infection by Chikungunya in patients attended in the emergencies service of Ibagué city, Colombia, during the epidemic outbreak that occured from October, 2015 to October, 2016.

Methods:

Descriptive, cross-sectional study in which were described the clinical manifestations of the acute infection by chikungunya using an instrument developed from the review of the literature that comprises the main clinical manifestations of the infection by chikungunya in its acute phase, as an information attached to the epidemiologic records of individual obligatory notification of the National Institute of Health, which are reported to Ibagué-Tolima Municipal Secretary.

Results:

There were collected 6752 records of patients attended in emergency services, whom experienced fever of 38,5 ºC from 1 to 7 days (91,3%), myalgias (81,3%), maculopapular erythema (74,3%), severe arthralgias (70,6%), polyarthritis (41,1%) and retroarticular adenomegalies (8%).

Conclusions:

The results obtained in the present study provide important information for the clinical diagnosis of chikungunya in places with similar characteristics to the hyperepidemic cities and it facilitates to differentiate the disease in its acute phase among the different current arboviruses with signs of myalgia, retroarticular adenopathies and severe arthralgia.

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