West Nile fever maps, 2 August 2012: further human cases in the EU and its neighbourhood
Further human cases of West Nile fever have been reported for the EU and its neighbourhood over the past week. In the past week 18 new cases were reported in Greece by the Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO) - of these, 13 were reported from the Attiki prefecture, an area with previous case reports. Newly affected areas (prefectures) in Greece are Thessaloniki (reporting 1 confirmed case), Samos (1 confirmed case) and Imathia (1 probable case). One person in Greece has acquired the infection through blood transfusion and another’s place of exposure is undetermined. New cases and affected areas in Greece are not unexpected given that since 2010 there has been progressive geographical expansion of WNV transmission throughout the country, as stated in the recently published ECDC risk assessment on the epidemiological situation of the West Nile fever in Greece. The case in Italy, Oristano, reported last week, has not been confirmed by the National Reference Laboratory and hence identified as a false positive result by the Italian Ministry of Health. Thus, it has been removed from the map and table and at present there are no affected areas in Italy.
In the neighbouring countries, the Russian health authorities reported 23 new cases in the two areas (oblasts) with previous case reports: Volgogradskaya (17) and Astrakhanskaya (6). Every Friday ECDC publishes on its website the West Nile fever maps, the information being based on cases reported up to the Thursday of each week.
