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1/6/07

Times Online:Tropical diseases back as Europe warms up - by Maurice Chittenden

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Tropical diseases back as Europe warms up - by Maurice Chittenden

SCIENTISTS have uncovered the first evidence that diseases such as malaria, long thought beaten in Europe, are making a comeback because of climate change. Holidaymakers could be at risk this summer because the disease has already re-emerged in Italy, where Mussolini once drained marshes to try to eradicate it. Italy was declared malaria free in 1970 but cases of malaria are now being registered every year in the country’s southern regions.

“We are at the southern edge of the globe’s temperate area and that’s why Italy is being hit most by the shattering of climatic equilibriums. As a result we are importing illness from Africa,” said Francesco Ferrante, director-general of Legambiente, an Italian environmental association which has produced a new report on the hazards of climate change.

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