Mosquito-borne diseases: a study estimates possible risks including in Italy
A comprehensive overview of the potential ability of mosquitoes to transmit diseases in Europe and America, with a mapping of the areas where infection surveillance and control of these insects should be prioritized.
These are in a nutshell the results of the scientific study “Estimating the potential risk of transmission of arboviruses in the Americas and Europe: a modeling study” just published in the scientific journal The Lancet Planetary Health and conducted by an international research team coordinated by Stefano Merler and Piero Poletti from Fondazione Bruno Kessler and including in addition to FBK, the Edmund Mach Foundation, the University of Trento, Trento, Italy, the Bocconi University of Milan, the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, La Sapienza University of Rome, Federal University de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Indiana University in Bloomington (USA), Northeastern University in Boston (USA) and the University of Miami (USA).
In particular, the paper provides estimates of the spatiotemporal spread of two different mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, as well as estimates of the potential risk of autochthonous transmission (R0) of some arboviruses, such as chikungunya, dengue and Zika, transmitted by these mosquitoes.