An unusual outbreak of chikungunya in the Italian city of Ravenna this summer has been blamed on a man from Kerala who came visiting relatives.In the latest issue of medical journal The Lancet, an Italia University expert has confirmed that the “unusual” virus that affected a northern Italy district was chikungunya, carried to the country by a person from Kerala.“The virus which spread in Ravenna in northern Italy was carried in the man visiting from India, where there is an epidemic. It spread through the community by mosquitoes commonly found in southern Europe during summer months,” Professor Antonio Cassone from Rome’s Italia University has been quoted as saying in The Lancet.According to Cassone, the man from Kerala came to visit relatives in Italy. “Two days after he visited his cousin, he developed fever. This happened on June 23. On July 4, his cousin also got fever. The fever was followed by very painful joints and rashes. Following this, all components in the family got sick,” he said. The Lancet report says while there were only 2-3 patients in the area by June-end, it touched 40 by the beginning of August and climbed to 204 cases by the end of September.It was difficult initially for local health authorities to pinpoint the virus type. “It was seen that a mosquito was biting and there was high density of mosquitoes. This mosquito was moving and affecting people in the radius of 200 metres, and was capable of biting others. By the end of June, there were two or three patients. The capacity of the mosquitoes became higher and it caused an epidemic in a small area.” “We at the National Reference Laboratory had some alerts. We got evidence of the symptoms which were so very close to chikungunya. We realised there was a very high density of mosquitoes. We got the diagnosis, collected samples of almost all affected inhabitants. Laboratory investigations were not so difficult. For the local authorities, the difficult part was the preparedness, understanding the new symptoms,” Cassone said.The situation in the district is now under control. “There are 10 cases that are still under examination. But the epidemic is closed and over since we did not get any new case of chikungunya after September.”In New Delhi, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said it had no information on the cause for the Ravenna outbreak. “We do not have any such information but will approach the WHO and ICMR on this soon,” said Dr Shiv Lal, Director, NICD.
