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Since the emergence of the chikungunya virus in Brazil in 2014, more than 700,000 cases have been reported throughout the country, corresponding to one-third of all cases reported in the Americas. In addition to its high attack rates, resulting in hundreds of thousands of cases, the disease has high chronicity rates with persistent joint manifestations for more than 3 months, which can spread to more than half of the patients affected in the acute phase. Pain associated with musculoskeletal manifestations, often disabling, has an effect on patients' quality of life at different stages of the disease. Currently, the challenge faced by specialists is identifying the best therapy to be instituted for symptom relief despite the limited number of published intervention studies. In 2016, a multidisciplinary group published pharmacological treatment protocols for pain in patients with chikungunya, which was incorporated into the guidelines for clinical management of the Brazilian Ministry of Health in 2017; in that same year, a consensus was published by the Brazilian Society of Rheumatology about diagnosis and treatment. After 5 years of experience with chikungunya epidemics, in 2019, specialists involved in the protocols of the Brazilian Society of Rheumatology and Brazilian Ministry of Health prepared an update with the main objective of developing flowcharts for the therapeutic approach of musculoskeletal manifestations in adult patients to enable specialists at different levels of healthcare to spread and apply this guideline in a systematic and simplified manner.

Since the detection of the Chikungunya virus in America in 2013, two million cases of the disease have been notified worldwide. Severe cases and deaths related to Chikungunya have been reported in India and Reunion Island, estimated at 1 death per 1,000 inhabitants. Joint involvement in the acute and chronic phase is the main clinical manifestation associated with Chikungunya. The severity of the infection may be directly attributable to viral action or indirectly, owing to decompensation of preexisting comorbidities. In Brazil, the virus was identified in 2014, and recently, there has been a significant increase in the number of deaths caused by the Chikungunya virus infection, especially in Pernambuco. However, the numbers of fatalities are probably underreported, since for many cases, the diagnosis of Chikungunya infection may not be considered, for deaths by indirect causes. An increase in the mortality rate within months of epidemic occurrence, compared to previous years has also been reported and may be associated with Chikungunya virus infection. An in-depth investigation of reported mortality in Brazil is necessary, to measure the actual impact of the deaths, thereby, allowing the identification of possible causes. This will alert professionals about the risks, and hence, enable creation of protocols that target reducing mortality.