4-year-old dying of malaria alarms Italy

A four - year - old has died of cerebral malaria in northern Italy, a region where there have never been victims of this disease, causing doctors to view it as a very mysterious case.

Sofia Zago died in Brescia on Sunday night after being hospitalised with fever and high fever.

In Italy it has never been heard of mosquito bites of “Anopheles”, which carries malaria cerebral, the deadliest form of blood disease.

But after a hot summer, people have begun to fear that it may have reached neighboring Italy.

Sofia had been on holiday with her parents in Bibyone, a resort in the Adriatic near Venice.

It's the first time in my 30-year career to see a case of malaria, said Dr Claudio Patterson, an infectious disease specialist at “Hospital. Trent's Santa Chiara”.