“Dengue is certainly not a national emergency and we do not expect a large epidemic. However, we must control what happens. Last year we had 82 indigenous cases, this demonstrates that the system is capable of developing and expanding the disease once it has arrived in our country. Given the general situation, it is presumable that we will have a few more cases in Italy this year. The possibility that a person, after having contracted infection in a highly endemic area (South America or South East Asia), arrives in us and since we have the vector – the tiger mosquito – it is very likely to be able to transmit the disease”. Thus at Adnkronos Health Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of Simit, the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, on the sidelines of the conference 'Vaccination protection in fragile patients at risk' promoted today at the Ministry of Health.
“We do not expect large numbers – reassures the infectious disease specialist – also because the tiger mosquito is less competent than the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) at transmitting the virus. We must obviously pay attention to how many people arrive in Italy with the disease, because by blocking the patient blocks the circuit. So it is good to be careful that Aedes aegypti does not arrive in Italy, because it is already present in the Caspian Sea and therefore is close by. If this mosquito also arrived in Italy, evidently the situation would change and we would become more similar to highly endemic countries”, concludes Andreoni.
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