Berlin. For the first time in Europe, a person tested positive for Oropouche fever. The virus was detected in a man in Veneto.
For the first time in Europe, a case of Oropouche fever A patient from Veneto in Italy, who had recently been to the Caribbean, tested positive for the virus at the Sacro Cuore Don Calabria (IRCCS) in Negrar. The health authorities in Veneto and international surveillance services were immediately informed. The possibility of the virus being spread by potential vectors such as mosquitoes and midges will now be investigated.
“Oropouche fever is caused by the virus of the same name (OROV), which is normally present in the Amazon region and is transmitted to humans through insect bites, especially mosquitoes and midges,” explained Federico Giovanni Gobbi, head of the IRCCS’s Department of Infectious, Tropical and Microbiological Diseases, to the Italian news agency Ansa.
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Symptoms of Oropouche fever are similar to other tropical viral fevers
Concetta Castilletti, head of the Virology and Emerging Pathogens Unit at IRCCS, told Italian media that the Symptoms of Oropouche fever occur three to eight days after an insect bite. These are similar to other tropical viral fevers such as dengue, Zika or chikungunya and include high fever, headache, eye pain, general malaise, muscle and joint pain, nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light. In rare cases, the central nervous system can be affected, which can lead to meningitis and encephalitis. About 60 percent of patients experience a milder return of symptoms after the acute phase.
Since there are no specific cures or vaccines against Oropouche fever, the focus is on Treatment on alleviating symptoms and monitoring patients. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), most patients recover within seven days. In individual cases, however, recovery can take weeks.
RKI: Oropouche fever widespread in South America
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Oropouche fever is one of the most widespread Arbovirus diseases in South America. Since 1955, over 500,000 cases have been diagnosed there. It is mainly found in the Amazon region and is transmitted to humans primarily through insect bites.
Despite the presence of insects of the species ‘Culicoides’ in Italy, experts from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità do not currently see an increased risk of autochthonous transmission, i.e. local transmission, according to a report by “La Repubblica”, since the specific vector, Culicoides paranensis, does not yet occur in Europe. The vector is a transport vehicle that can introduce a DNA sequence into a recipient cell.
The current epidemiological situation shows that between the end of 2023 and 2024, more than 5,000 cases of Oropouche fever were reported in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and, more recently, Cuba.
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