Climate change is paving the way for vectors of tropical diseases to spread in Europe too. It is gradually getting warm enough here for Asian tiger mosquitoes, yellow fever mosquitoes and the like. They transmit infectious diseases like this, for example. West Nile Fever (WNV) or that Dengue.
Oropouche fever in Italy
But these are still travelers who bring the infection home: “Currently, mosquito-borne diseases occur in Germany mainly as imported infections, i.e. among returning travelers who are in a country with endemic diseases (e.g. malaria, West Nile fever, dengue fever, chikungunya fever, Zika fever), however, due to climate change, autochthonous cases – i.e. infections acquired in Germany – could occur or increase in the future,” writes the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) [externer Link].
So far, four cases of Oropouche fever have been reported in Italy. Italian Institute of Health Sacro Cuore Don Calabria (IRCCS) [externer Link]. All affected people were infected outside Italy and therefore were not infected by mosquitoes in Italy.
What is Oropouche fever?
Oropouche fever is an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes or small flies/midges (Culicoides paraensis). This makes the virus one of the so-called arboviruses. The general term arboviruses includes viruses that reproduce in arthropods such as mosquitoes or ticks as well as in vertebrates (birds, mammals). According to the RKI, these viruses can be transmitted to vertebrates by arthropods through bites or stings during a blood meal.
Oropouche fever is one of the most widespread arboviruses in South America. From 1955 to the present, more than 500,000 cases have been diagnosed, a figure that is probably an underestimate given the limited diagnostic resources in the area of distribution, according to Federico Giovanni Gobbi, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases, Tropical Diseases and Microbiology at the IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria in Negrare.