Dengue fever: Popular European holiday hotspots at risk of being hit by tropical disease, warn UK scientists

He also pointed out multiple hotspots identified in southern Italy’s Puglia region and the Spanish city of Barcelona.

“If you’re going on holiday, you need to be careful because there are lots of these mosquitoes around,” he said.

La Colle-sur-Loup, Baho, and Montpellier-Perols in southern France, and Vila-seca in Spain all had their first dengue outbreaks this year, which the modelling correctly predicted.

Dengue fever: What is it and how does it spread?

Last year, Paris had its first outbreak of the disease, making it the furthest north dengue fever has taken hold in Europe.

The mosquitos contract the virus by biting returning travellers who were infected while abroad and then transmitting it to other people in the area.

Southern France and northern Italy are high risk because of “a favourable climate, a stable mosquito population and the high number of travellers returning from tropical countries where the disease is prevalent,” according to Dr Dominic Brass, an epidemiological modeller at UKCEH who led the study.

“However, areas of risk are expanding northwards,” he said.

Scientists say warmer weather due to climate change is creating more favourable conditions for invasive mosquitoes to spread into previously unaffected areas.

In 2023, there were 130 locally acquired cases of dengue reported in the EU, compared to 71 in 2022, according to an update from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The rise is even more stark when you look back further – between 2010 and 2021, there were 73 cases across the whole period.

Asian tiger mosquito eggs have been found in southeast England, but the species has not yet become established in the UK.