COME TO ITALY - TO RAVENNA / CERVIA / RIMINI AND GET A TROPICAL DISEASE - FOR FREE!
If you guys want to visit Ravenna , Cervia, Rimini and return home with a nice souvenir, free-of-charge, you are really welcome. There is a tropical disease, spreading around between Rimini Cervia and Ravenna, called Chikungunya, tropical virus spread around by the Tiger Mosquito, which is very much diffused in this area. Documented sources are linked.
Not only you get nice red spots on you from the mosquito bites, but also, this charming disease "generally not fatal" but quite some deaths have been documented in weak / hypersensitive individuals.
Basically, you get very high temperature, very strong weakness in legs and movements in general:
[from Wiki]: "The symptoms of Chikungunya include fever which can reach 39°C, (102.2°F) a petechial or maculopapular rash usually involving the limbs and trunk, and arthralgia or arthritis affecting multiple joints which can be debilitating. The symptoms could also include headache, conjunctival injection, and slight photophobia....Dermatological manifestations observed in a recent outbreak of Chikungunya fever in Southern India"
A comprehensive website has been put on for Tiger Mosquito (Zanzara Tigre) in Emilia Romagna region, clearly in plain Italian only, so to avoid tourists knowing too much (in my humble opinion - don't sue me please ;-)
Undocumented rumors (no responsibility on this) report the clarified appearance of the virus in Castiglione di Cervia from MARCH 2007, but it was kept secret to avoid impacts on touristic appeal of the area, while intensifying the pesticide sprays in the surrounding to keep it confined.
The supposed "official" origin of the virus presence is "from an infected Indian citizen visiting the Cervia surroundings" and hospitalized in the end of June 2007 (this "fact" does not cope with the rumors above ;-)
Well if you are lucky and keep on visiting Cervia Ravenna Rimini and so on, You can get it. Or you could first or after get Dengue Fever again by Tiger Mosquito!.
The background message is another: THERE IS A WIDESPREAD PEST - TIGER MOSQUITO - IN THE Cervia Ravenna Rimini AREA, VERY ABUNDANT IN POPULATION, AND GROWING UP STILL, WHICH CAN SPREAD VIRUSES AROUND !!! AT THE MOMENT CHIKUNGUNYA AND DENGUE ARE REPORTED, BUT WHAT WILL IT BE NEXT??? AIDS? EBOLA?
Disclaimer: in case someone sues me, the above is "just science-fiction I made up because I'm a bad person". Please don't sue me, I'm poor.
