“Infectious diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are an enormous public health problem. Suffice it to say that it is estimated that every year around 750,000 people in the world die due to diseases transmitted by mosquitoes. Today it has become an even more relevant problem because evidently with the changes climatic conditions, some species of mosquitoes that we didn’t have in Italy are now resident here and therefore infectious diseases also arrive with the vector”. Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of Simit, the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, told Adnkronos Salute on the sidelines of the presentation – today in Rome – of the Prevention Management LAboratory (PMLAb) project, during the event ‘The Management of Covid-19 prophylaxis as a paradigm of a new organizational model’.
According to Andreoni, the role of globalization aggravates the problem: “Diseases that we believed in some way were not of our concern arrive in Italy in a few hours – he explains – Dengue, West Nile, Chikungunya and also Zika. Only for this last disease we have not yet recorded indigenous cases. Today the big problem arises that we must learn to understand these diseases and make the diagnosis. We must develop research on these diseases for which there are no specific drugs.” Also for this reason “we need to focus on vaccinations – recommends the specialist – another important system to fight these infectious diseases. We finally have a decent vaccine for malaria, we have been looking for it for many years after various failures. We are starting to see the light in at the end of the tunnel, we have a vaccine for Dengue, another for Ebola, so we are also arming ourselves against these diseases with good vaccinations.”
As regards, however, the fight against mosquitoes in cities, “in parks and green areas it is important – underlines Andreoni – to maintain environments that are unsuitable for mosquitoes. Therefore, first of all, avoid stagnant water to prevent them from mosquitoes lay their eggs.” Among the systems to try to reduce the risk of mosquito bites, “use long-sleeved clothes, possibly light in color, not liked by mosquitoes, skin repellents, mosquito nets. All mechanisms that we must put in place if we want to combat this phenomenon”, he concludes.
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