TUESDAY started as a day of celebration but ended in crippling pain for Mr Vidwasekar Gnanasigamani, a 38-year-old farmer from Tamil Nadu, India.

He had come here nearly a month ago to visit friends, and Tuesday was when he was in Bedok with them to celebrate Pongal, a traditional harvest festival for Tamils to give thanks for the blessings of the past year.

While travelling on the bus to return to the Little India shophouse where he was staying, a sharp pain seared his ankles.

In 15 minutes, it spread to his knees, elbows and wrists.It was so painful that he could barely walk to the shophouse after getting off the bus. A trek that should have taken five minutes took him half an hour.

He said in Tamil: 'I walked very slowly, and had to sit down and rest after a while before walking again.'

He did not know it then, but joint pain is a classic symptom of chikungunya, a dengue-like disease spread by the Aedes mosquito.

The disease gets its name from the word in the Makonde language meaning 'that which bends up', a reference to the stooped posture that patients adopt to compensate for the severe pain in their joints.

Makonde is spoken along the border between Tanzania and Mozambique, where the disease first surfaced in 1955.

Joint pains aside, Mr Vidwasekar also sprang a high fever, another symptom.

He is one of six people here, all foreign nationals in their 20s and 30s, who have been who have been diagnosed with chikungunya this month.

Five of them, including him, were staying in the same shophouse.

They were picked up only after a 27-year-old man from Bangladesh, the third among them to fall sick, went to see a general practitioner who suspected that he had either dengue or chikungunya and sent him for a blood test.

When the result was positive for chikungunya, the GP informed the Health Ministry, which sent its officers to investigate.

All six men were taken to the Communicable Disease Centre on Wednesday.

Only Mr Vidwasekar and another man from Bangladesh were admitted because tests showed that they still had the virus in their blood and were potentially infectious.

As there is no treatment for chikungunya, they were given drugs for the fever and pain, and fluids to prevent dehydration.

Only Mr Vidwasekar is still running a temperature.

The father of two sons aged four and seven had been planning to travel to Malaysia the day he fell sick.

He said: 'Now, I just want to get well soon and go back to India.'

huichieh@sph.com.sg

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Quick facts about disease

LIKE dengue, chikungunya fever is caused by a virus which is spread by the Aedes mosquito.

It usually takes three to seven days, but sometimes up to 12 days, for a person infected by the chikungunya virus to fall sick.

Patients can develop symptoms similar to dengue, such as fever, joint pain, chills, nausea, vomiting, headaches and rashes.

The symptoms usually last three to 10 days, but the pain can last weeks or months.

Like dengue, no cure is available. Rest is usually the best medicine, combined with medication for fever and pain and fluids to prevent dehydration.

Patients should not take aspirin, as it can increase the risk of bleeding.

The disease usually goes away on its own. It is rarely fatal, but deaths have been reported overseas.

To avoid contracting the virus, travellers to regions where the disease has been reported - such as Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia - should use insect repellent and wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers while outdoors.

The Health Ministry and the National Environment Agency also advise people to to prevent mosquito breeding on their properties.