Climate right for Asian mosquito to spread in N Europe

The climate in northwestern Europe and the Balkans is becoming suitable for the Asian tiger mosquito, a disease-spreading invasive species, scientists said on Wednesday.

The warning comes from scientists at the University of Liverpool, northwestern England, who say the two regions have been having progressively milder winters and warmer summers.

These temperate conditions favour the mosquito, which gained a foothold in Albania in 1979 and is now present in more than 15 countries on Europe's southern rim.

"Over the last two decades, climate conditions have become more suitable over central northwestern Europe -- Benelux, western Germany -- and the Balkans," they said.

At the same time, drier conditions in southern Spain have made that region less welcoming for the insect, they said.

The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), a native of tropical and subtropical areas of Southeast Asia, can transmit viruses that cause West Nile fever, yellow fever, dengue, St Louis and Japanese encephalitis and other diseases.

In 2005-6, it caused an epidemic of chikungunya, a disease that attacks the joints, on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion. A year later, it unleashed an outbreak of chikungyuna in the Italian province of Ravenna.

In 2010, it was fingered as a transmitter of dengue virus in France and Croatia.

As of last December, the mosquito was present in more than 15 countries, from southern Spain to parts of Greece and Turkey, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Reporting in Britain's Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the Liverpool team looked at European weather records for 1950-2009 and ran a widely-used computer model to simulate weather trends for 2030-2050.

"Similar trends are likely in the future with an increased risk simulated over northern Europe and slightly decreased risk over southern Europe," says the study. - AFP