“The person who tested positive for dengue fever is in good clinical condition,” the provincial health authority of Brescia, northern Italy, said in a statement on Thursday.
The areas where the patient lived and worked have begun mosquito control measures, including setting mosquito traps, the agency said.
The head of the epidemiology department at Genoa’s San Martino Hospital, Matteo Bassetti, questioned whether it was indeed the first indigenous case of the year, or rather the first recognised one.
“By now, Dengue is an infection that must be clinically considered whenever there are suspicious symptoms, even outside of endemic areas,” Bassetti wrote on social media platform X.
Dengue is a viral disease causing a high fever. In rare cases, it can progress to more serious conditions resulting in severe bleeding.
Deaths are very rare.
An indigenous case means that the person has not recently travelled to regions of the world where the virus, which is transmitted from one person to another by tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus), is widely circulating.
The presence of those mosquitoes have been increasing in several southern European countries, including Italy, France and Spain.
The World Health Organization has said the rise has been partly fuelled by climate change and weather phenomena in which heavy rain, humidity and higher temperatures favour mosquitoes’ reproduction and transmission of the virus.
In 2023, Italy recorded more than 80 indigenous cases, while France had about fifty, according to the WHO.
Cases in which the person is infected abroad number in the hundreds.
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