Rapid increase in neuroinvasive West Nile virus infections in humans, Italy, July 2022
Flavia Riccardo, Antonino Bella, Federica Monaco, Federica Ferraro, Daniele Petrone, Alberto Mateo‐Urdiales, Xanthi Andrianou, Martina Del Manso, Giulietta Venturi, Claudia Fortuna, Marco Di Luca, Francesco Severini, Maria Grazia Caporali, Daniela Morelli, Federica Iapaolo, Ilaria Pati, Letizia Lombardini, Tamás Bakonyi, Olivia Alexandra, Patrizio Pezzotti, Maria Gabriella Perrotta, Francesco Maraglino, Giovanni Rezza, Anna Teresa Palamara, Italian Arbovirus Surveillance network
Abstract
As in 2018, when a large West Nile virus (WNV) epidemic occurred, the 2022 vector season in Italy was marked by an early onset of WNV circulation in mosquitoes and birds. Human infections were limited until early July, when we observed a rapid increase in the number of cases. We describe the epidemiology of human infections and animal and vector surveillance for WNV and compare the more consolidated data of June and July 2022 with the same period in 2018.