The outbreak of seven autochthonous dengue cases reported by Succo et al. in this issue of Eurosurveillance [6] was triggered by one infected traveller returning from French Polynesia in the summer of 2015, and occurred in an area where another vector, Ae. albopictus, the Asian Tiger mosquito, was established in 2005. This is not the first event of local transmission of DENV reported in Europe in recent years. Since 2010, at least 23 dengue cases were detected. In September 2010, two autochthonous cases of dengue fever were identified in Nice, southern France. The index case had friends from the West French Indies staying with him, while the second case was an individual living nearby [7]. In the summer of the same year, another transmission event occurred in Croatia [8,9]. The index case was a German man returning in mid-August from a two-week holiday spent at the Peljesac peninsula and the isle of Korĉula, ca 100 km north-west of Dubrovnik. A second autochthonous case, and other 15 individuals with serological evidence of recent infection, were identified in October 2010. How the virus was introduced in Croatia remains unclear. In 2013 and 2014, five autochthonous case of dengue were identified in southern France, one in Bouches-du-Rhône (2013) [10], and four in Aubage and Toulon-Hìres (2014) [11]. Ae. albopictus was the vector in all the transmission events listed here. Dengue is not the only Aedes-borne viral disease threatening the health of European citizens. Nearly 10 years ago, in the summer of 2007, more than 250 cases of chikungunya occurred in the north-east of Italy [12]. The primary case was a viraemic individual arriving from the Indian State of Kerala. The chikungunya virus (CHIKV) implicated in the sustained outbreak carried the A226V mutation, which increases virus fitness and is usually detected in areas where the Tiger mosquito is the predominant vector [13]. In September 2010, autochthonous transmission of the CHIKV was also identified in south-east France, where chikungunya was diagnosed in two children living in the same area as another child who developed a febrile illness after returning from Rajasthan, India [14].
Source: Eurosurveillance – View Article
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