Italian doctors warn of malaria returning to Europe

Italian doctors have reported what they believe to be the first case of malaria spread by mosquitoes in Western Europe for twenty years.

The victim is a woman in Grosseto in central Italy, where malaria was once common.

In a report in the medical journal, The Lancet, the Italian doctors say local mosquitoes may have transmitted the disease after it was reintroduced to the area by a resident who caught malaria in India.

Insecticides have now been sprayed to kill all mosquitoes in the area, and the doctors say the risk of wide-spread malaria returning is small.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service