PhysOrg,Com, April 26, 2007 VERA BEACH, Florida -- The next mosquito-borne illness in the United States may be chikungunya ("chicken-GUN-ya") and despite its odd name the viral disease is no laughing matter, University of Florida experts say.Though generally not fatal, chikungunya has sickened 1.6 million people in the Indian Ocean region since early 2005 and could be transmitted by two mosquitoes found in the southern United States, said Walter Tabachnick of UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. It's not possible to predict when a U.S. chikungunya outbreak might occur but experts agree on the likely scenario, said Tabachnick, director of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach. Few U.S. universities study chikungunya, partly because funding is scarce, said Stephen Higgs, a pathology professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Higgs, who's studied the disease for several years, said the United States should have been better prepared for the West Nile disease outbreak in 1999. "There was a tremendous influx of funding for research of vector-borne diseases after the West Nile virus was introduced, but that has diminished," he said. "We need to maintain expertise in this country."