A four-year-old girl has died of malaria at Brescia's Ospedali Civili hospital, officials confirmed Tuesday. The girl had previously been in hospital in Portogruaro and then in Trento in relation to diabetes, Trentino Provincial Health Agency (APSS) Director General Paolo Bordon said Tuesday.
When she was in hospital in Trento there were also "two children with malaria who recovered, in another room", Bordon said. The girl, the daughter of an Italian couple resident in Trento, had reportedly never been to a country where malaria is a problem. There is no evidence of malaria-transmitting species of mosquito being present in Italy.
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said the girl may have got the disease in hospital in Trento. "From the first indications we have, it seems that the child may have contracted malaria in hospital, in Trento, which would make it a very serious case," Lorenzin told reporters during the inspection of a hospital at La Maddalena in Sardinia. "We have immediately sent inspectors". The child was hit by the most acute form of the disease and died in the night between Sunday and Monday. Alternatively, the girl may have been infected by a mosquito that was carried to Italy from abroad via baggage. Giampiero Carosi, a University of Brescia infectious diseases expert, said a possible hypothesis was that a mosquito bit someone who was infected, perhaps after a trip, and then transmitted the disease to the girl. The hospital wards affected will undergo disinfestation procedures.
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