The medical world is completely baffled following the death of a four-year-old girl from cerebral malaria in Italy.


The girl had not traveled to any at-risk nations, but is reported to have been admitted to the paediatric ward of the Santa Chiara hospital due to another illness. There she came into contact with two other children who had contracted malaria during a visit to Burkina Faso.

Dr Paternoster said that only certain types of mosquito can transmit malaria to another person and that those mosquitoes did not exist in Italy.

"It was a very hot summer and with climate change we cannot rule out the adaptation of some species (of mosquito) or the re-introduction of others" which could transmit the disease," Dr Paternoster told AFP.