The deadly West Nile Virus continues to spread in Europe. In the whole of Europe at least 71 deaths had been reported by Thursday of the cases that are due to the West Nile fever.
- At least 71 Deaths due to West Nile Virus
- More than 800 Infected in the European Union
- Muscle pain and fever are symptoms of the infection
The European centre for disease prevention and control (ECDC) announced on Friday on its Website. Thus, 26 people in Serbia, 13 in Italy, 12 in Romania, and one each in Hungary and in Kosovo died of the viral disease. For Greece, 18 Dead were called, the Greek Ministry of health, spoke on Friday of 21 dead.
Health authorities have registered this year in the European Union, nearly 800 cases of West Nile fever in humans.
Mosquitoes transmit the West Nile Virus
The Virus is transmitted mainly by mosquitoes. It affects mainly birds but can also infect horses and humans.
At the end of August, the pathogen was detected for the first time in Germany – in the case of a great grey owl that had died in the Zoo of Halle, Germany. In Germany have been infected so far, all the concerned people abroad.
Many patients in the European holiday regions
Within the EU, so far, most infections have been reported, according to the ECDC in Italy, with 327 cases. In France, 16 cases were previously known, in Austria 10. In a total of five regions of France and Croatia, cases of human infection with West Nile were in this year for the first Time the Virus became known, it was said.
In Greece, the cases relate mainly to the Peloponnese Peninsula and the rural areas around Athens, as well as the area around the port city of Thessaloniki. D
ie the actual number of Infected is likely to be – both in Greece and in the rest of Europe – significantly higher than the official Figures, because most individuals have no or mild symptoms such as headache and limb pain.
The West Nile fever typically with muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes and fever. In about one of every 100 infections leads to a severe, the brain, the disease course, said RKI-expert epidemiologist Klaus Stark from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. A part of these diseases end fatally.