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Tropical Virus Kills Italian Man

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By JIA-RUI CHONG, Los Angeles Times

Published: December 29, 2007

An unusual virus known as chikungunya sickened at least 200 people and contributed to the death of a man in northeastern Italy this year, marking the first time the tropical virus has caused a disease outbreak in a temperate climate, researchers reported this month.

The chikungunya virus, whose name derives from a word in an African language meaning "to become contorted," arrived in the Emilia Romagna region in June with a visitor from India and was spread through Asian tiger mosquitoes, researchers found.

Tropical tiger mosquitoes are not native to Italy, but have been found there since the 1990s, presumably because of higher temperatures resulting from global warming.

"This is a clear example of what we have been speculating 10 years about - that climate change could move certain diseases north," said Roberto Bertollini, a senior public health and environment adviser at the World Health Organization.

European travelers have brought malaria, dengue and other tropical diseases home before, but local outbreaks never were larger than two or three people, he said.

The concern in this case, Bertollini said, is that Europe's winters are becoming "milder and milder, and therefore the mosquitoes carrying disease can survive the winter. This might transform the occasional type of event to endemic disease."

The outbreak also shows the increasing connection among disparate places through family ties, tourism and commerce, said Antonio Cassone, chief of the infectious diseases department at the National Health Institute in Rome and a senior author on the paper describing the Italian outbreak. "All developed countries must be prepared, and not think this only happens in Africa or southern India," he said.

Chikungunya has expanded its range in the past few years because the virus has mutated to transmit easily through the Asian tiger mosquito, said Stephen Higgs, a vector biologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch who was not involved in the Italian study.

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