EUROPE has recorded its first-ever cases of Oropouche virus, just days after Brazil saw two young women die of the illness. The two unnamed people who visited Cuba showed up at separate hospitals in Italy with symptoms of the little-known disease, according to the Lancet . The first, a 26-year-old woman, developed a typical fever and diarrhoea after returning to Verona on May 26 from a two-week trip to Ciego de Ávila, in central Cuba.
The second had travelled to Havana and Santiago de Cuba in early May and was treated in Fori, northern Italy, on June 7 after he began experiencing symptoms. Tests by the Department of Tropical Infectious Diseases at the Sacred Heart Don Calabria Hospital, north of Verona, detected the Oropouche virus in the patients' blood. Both travellers have since fully recovered.
It is the first time an Oropouche infection has been diagnosed outside of Latin America, where the disease is spreading. “We should definitely be worried," Dr Danny Altmann, a Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, told told The Telegraph . "Things are changing and may become unstoppable.
" Since the diagnosis was disclosed, more travelers in Italy with recent visits to Latin America have tested positive for the virus, according to the study's authors. Most read in Health Most Oropouche infections are mild, with symptoms similar to Dengue , including a headache , body pains, nausea, a rash and sensitivity to light. Some individuals may also experience gastrointestin.