The long read.
Essays and explainers that take the time a complex subject deserves.
Italy opens 2026 West Nile season: Caserta and Firenze report the first mainland EU cases
ECDC's Week 25 report confirms Italy's first two locally-acquired West Nile cases of 2026, one in Caserta, one in Firenze. They are mainland EU's first cases of the season, and the line they open from is Italy's 779-case, 72-death year in 2025.
ReadEurope's 2026 mosquito season has opened, and the first fortnight of June moved the front line north
West Nile virus is now circulating in Berlin's house mosquitoes. Italy logged an early local case near Florence. France's tiger-mosquito response has become a daily municipal beat. Two weeks into June, here is where the 2026 season actually stands, and why the barrier, not the spray, is the layer that holds.
ReadClimate models have been under-predicting the northward march of Aedes by roughly a decade
Aedes albopictus is now established in cities that climate models placed outside its range until the 2030s. The models were not wrong, the climate moved faster. Here is what the revised projections look like, and what they mean for northern Europe.
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