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12th August 2024
11:39am BST
A potentially 'unstoppable' virus has reached Europe after two people in their 20s died from the disease in Brazil.
The 'sloth' fever Oropouche was detected in Europe for the first time when two people were admitted to hospitals in Italy showing symptoms of the disease.
The pair, a 26-year-old woman and 45-year-old man, had visited Cuba, according to esteemed medical journal the Lancet.
The woman had visited Cuba's Ciego de Avila province. When she returned to Verona on May 26, she was struck down with fever and diarrhoea.
Meanwhile, the man started to experience symptoms after he returned to Fori, northern Italy on June 7 following his travels in Havana and Santiago de Cuba.
Tests carried out at the Department of Tropical Infectious Diseases and Microbiology of the Scientific Research Hospital Sacred Heart Don Calabria, north of Verona, confirmed the presence of Oropouche in the patients’ blood.
Both have since made a full recovery.
This is the first time the virus, which is spread by infected midges and mosquitoes, has been seen outside Latin America.
Brazil reported the first fatalities in the world from the virus after two women, aged 21 and 24, died on July 25.
They had both been suffering from abdominal pain, bleeding, and hypotension.
Speaking about the virus to the Telegraph, Dr Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, said: "We should definitely be worried. Things are changing and may become unstoppable."
The Lancet said true number of infections in Europe could be much higher than has so far been reported, especially when considering the number of travellers flying between Cuba and Europe this summer, which could be as many as 50,000 in August alone.
Dr Concetta Castilletti, head of the Virology and Emerging Pathogens Unit at the hospital outside Verona, said viruses such as Oropouche are likely something we'll have to get used to "living alongside", due to factors such as climate change and the increasing amount of travel across continents.
She said: “Arboviruses such as Oropouche fever, Dengue, Zika, or Chikungunya, constitute one of the public health emergencies we must get used to living alongside.
“Climate change and the increase in the movement of human populations risk making viruses [that were] once confined to the tropical belt endemic even in our latitudes."
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, there have been 19 imported cases of Oropouche virus in the EU in June and July.
Symptoms of Oropouche fever are similar to dengue and include headache, fever, muscle aches, stiff joints, nausea, vomiting, chills, or sensitivity to light.
Severe cases may result in brain diseases such as meningitis.
