Chiapas, Mexico - Mexico has detected its first domestic case of the painful mosquito-borne viral disease chikungunya in the southwest part of the country, the state government of Chiapas reported on Saturday.

Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, reported that an 8 year old girl became the first person in Mexico to contract the disease, and that she was treated at the hospital in the town of Arriaga. The girl has since been released.

There is no commercial vaccine for the virus, which was detected for the first time in the Americas late last year. Chikungunya has already appeared in much of the Caribbean, Central America, and the United States. A handful of people in Mexico have had the disease, having contracted it abroad.

In September, El Salvador said it had detected nearly 30,000 cases of the virus. In the United States, locally transmitted infections - as opposed to Americans contracting the virus while traveling abroad - were reported for the first time this year.

Chikungunya is a virus that is most commonly found in Africa and Asia and is transmitted by the aedes aegypti mosquito - the same species that causes dengue fever. The disease is typically not fatal but it can cause debilitating symptoms including fever, headache, and severe joint pain that can last for several months.