Puerto Rico is facing an epidemic with the mosquito-borne illness chikungunya infecting over 10,000 people in the nation, according to a statement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday.

The virus has no known treatment or vaccine, Fox News Latnio reports.

According to the CDC, about 13 percent of chikungunya infected patients in Puerto Rico have been hospitalized, and 3 percent suffered major bleeding. Four patients in on the island died after contracting the virus but were reported to have prior serious health issues.

Chikungunya is an African name that means "bent in two" and comes from the painful symptoms the virus causes, including fever, headache, nausea and rash. Symptoms could last for months with some cases suffering with arthritis-like joint pain.

"The virus has circulated for years in Africa, South Asia and islands in the Indian Ocean, but it was largely unknown in the Western Hemisphere except by a relatively small number of tourists unfortunate enough to come down with it after returning home," William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, told USA Today.

According to Huffington Post, since the virus traveled to the Caribbean, there have been nearly 500 reported cases in the United States this year. In the past, there was usually an average of 28 infections a year. Many of the cases in the U.S. came from patients who contracted the virus overseas, but some reports over the summer show that 11 people who have not left the country were infected in Florida, USA Today reports citing the CDC.

World Health Organization reported that the virus has infected more than 7776,000 people in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

Chikungunya is usually not deadly. The virus is transmitted through mosquito bites and cannot pass from human to human.

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