AREQUIPA, Peru – The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported that at least a dozen European tourists who visited the island in July were infected with Oropouche fever.
A report from Europa Press It collects details from an ECDC report on communicable disease threats in the period between 27 July and 2 August.
According to the document, three new cases of the virus have been registered in Spain, all of them travellers from Cuba, and another five in Italy.
The cases reside in (and have been reported by) three different autonomous communities in Spain. The beginning of the symptoms was from May 30, 2024 to June 17, 2024.
In all cases, clinical symptoms were mild (fever, myalgia, rash, etc.), and all recovered. There is no association between them, except for a travel history involving Cuba.
On June 7, the first European case of Oropouche was reported in Italy in a 26-year-old woman who returned to the Veneto region on May 26, after visiting the Cuban province of Ciego de Ávila since the 12th of that month.
Without any relevant medical history, the young woman presented symptoms during the flight back to Italy, including diarrhea, malaise, high fever, severe headache and nausea. She also experienced arthralgia and retro-orbital pain.
The health authorities They initially suspected dengue, but rapid tests came back negative, as did tests for Zika and Chikungunya. Molecular tests ultimately confirmed Oropouche’s disease.
After being admitted to the hospital, the patient reported that her relatives in Cuba experienced similar symptoms.
Subsequently, two more cases were confirmed in that country in June and one more in July, all of them travellers returning from Cuba. In addition, a fourth case was retrospectively identified in a traveller returning from Brazil, with onset of symptoms at the end of March 2024.
On July 29, two other confirmed cases of the disease were reported in Germany in travelers who had visited the island.
According to the ECDC report, the symptoms appeared on 16 June and 2 July, during the patient’s stay in Cuba. One of the cases had fever, myalgia and headache.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Public Health of Cuba Carilda Peña García confirmed to Canal Caribe that there are cases of Oropouche fever and dengue in all provinces of the Island.
“There are cases of Oropouche in all the provinces of the country. Therefore, even if there is no circulation in a given municipality, it is in the province, and you travel, you move around and you can be the object of the mosquito bite,” warned the vice minister.
On the other hand, he stated that dengue It is an endemic disease on the Island.
According to official Cuban media, for the first time at this time of year Cuba is facing the circulation of two arboviruses with a very similar initial evolution.
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