Great emotion this afternoon for the last farewell to Luigi Masala, the pastry chef from Oristano who died yesterday of Nile fever . Last August, the seventy-year-old had been the first case of infection in humans in Sardinia; since then the virus has continued to circulate and above all to affect people already debilitated due to other pathologies .
Eight cases have been confirmed since August: five in Oristano, one in Riola Sardo, one in Simaxis and Marrubiu. And there were two other victims : in September a 65-year-old woman from Sant'Anna (an agricultural hamlet of Marrubiu) died, while a few weeks ago an 89-year-old from Oristano died (both suffered from other pathologies).
In the Oristano area, the West Nile disease virus is now endemic; since it was isolated for the first time in humans in 2011, it has caused a total of 6 victims (three this year alone); over the years there have been several infections but recently the situation seemed to be under control. Until this summer's explosion , when temperatures were higher than usual, the humidity rate and the presence of wetlands created the ideal conditions for the proliferation of mosquitoes.
It is precisely the insects that can transmit the virus to humans, while mosquitoes become infected after coming into contact with birds (the real reservoirs of the virus). To complicate the situation even a perhaps less widespread disinfestation than in the past , the interventions planned by the Province (which has to deal with fewer resources and means) are presumably not sufficient to cover the entire provincial territory.
The ASL, in collaboration with the Provincial Anti-Insect Center and the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Sardinia, has for some time put in place a supervisory network for the prevention, surveillance and fight against Nile fever, a network which in recent months has been also enhanced; traps have been installed to catch insects and passive supervision of birds found dead has also been strengthened.
