Driven by increasingly hotter and longer summers, the number of mosquito-transmitted infections is growing in Italy. From the beginning of summer to today, those affected by Nile fever, which rose to 237 of which 13 died. Just as the number of ‘native’ Dengue cases, i.e. those transmitted in Italy and not, as generally happens with this virus, from other countries, is growing, and is now 19. The main diseases transmitted through mosquitoes are monitored by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, which constantly monitors their spread. The first case of Nile fever infection of the season was reported from Emilia-Romagna in July in the province of Parma. Since then, according to the Surveillance bulletin of theIss updated to 13 September, the Provinces in which it circulates have reached 49 and the Regions have reached 9: Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia. The disease is often asymptomatic; about 20% have fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, swollen lymph nodes. The most serious symptoms occur in less than 1% of cases and include convulsions, up to paralysis and coma. The latter is called neuro-invasive form and of the 237 cases of West Nile infection, 138 manifested themselves in this way (of which 24 were in Piedmont and 41 in Lombardy).
“The globalization of travel and the tropicalization of Italy’s climate are causing the growth of infections that were previously limited to other parts of the world and have started to circulate in Italy, such as West Nile, Dengue and Chikungunya carried by the Aedes albopictus mosquito. Cases are underestimated compared to the real ones”, he explains Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of the Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit).
This summer, however, there were 146 cases of Dengue imported from other countries, while there are 19 cases transmitted locally in Italy, i.e. those that worry experts. Based on the bulletin updated on 11 September 2023, these cases refer to three unconnected transmission episodes in the provinces of Lodi (14), Latina (2) and Rome (3). “The transmission of the Dengue virus – explains the ISS – is supported by the proliferation of its vector, the Aedes albopictus mosquito, now present in much of Europe”. The problem that Dengue has become autochthonous, specifies Andreoni who holds the chair of Infectious Diseases at the Tor Vergata University of Rome, “is quite relevant because it is potentially lethal, particularly in cases of reinfection. It does not only affect the fragile, I myself years ago, I was affected by it, in Thailand with a fever of 40 and encephalitis. There are no active drugs, masks do not protect us, the only tool is the reduction of exposure to mosquito bites.”
It is, however, an arbovirus similar to West Nile, the ‘Toscana virus’ identified in a 25-year-old boy, hospitalized at the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa with encephalitis. Known since 1971, when it was isolated in Tuscany, it is transmitted by sandflies, insects very similar to mosquitoes.
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