Invited to SKAI and “Atairiastos” on Wednesday morning was Gikas MallorcaProfessor of Epidemiology at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, who spoke about the new outbreak of cases dengue fever.

“100 years ago, between 1927-1928, there were records of dengue fever in Greece, with thousands of cases reported in the newspapers. At that time there were no tests, so the diagnosis was made with the symptoms people saw, based on the fever,” Mr. Majorkinis pointed out initially.

He also noted that dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease. In fact, the African “Tiger” mosquito is the one that transmits it most effectively, which fortunately is not endemic to Greece.

“In our country there is the Asian “Tiger” mosquito, which does not bite many people. In recent years, small epidemics have been observed in Italy and Spain, but in Greece we do not expect an epidemic of the order of ’27-’28”, said Mr. Majorkinis, while adding:

“A more characteristic symptom that not everyone shows is what we call “bone-breaking fever”, that is, your bones hurt so much as if they have been broken, while hemorrhagic fever can also occur.”

In closing, he emphasized that dengue fever does not affect all ages, while to a question about whether it is transmitted from person to person, he answered unequivocally “no”.