By Amelie Baron and Ezra Fieser PORT-AU-PRINCE/SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - A painful mosquito-borne virus spreading quickly through the Caribbean is causing alarm in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, where health officials are scrambling to respond to a surge of new patients. Chikungunya, a virus more commonly found in Africa and Asia and transmitted by the same daytime-biting aedes aegypti mosquito that causes the more deadly dengue fever, was first detected in the eastern Caribbean five months ago. "These mosquitoes know no borders," said Phyllis Kozarsky, a physician with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The Pan-American Health Organization reports more than 55,000 suspected and confirmed cases in the Caribbean.
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