Greece recorded 75 new locally acquired West Nile virus infections in a single week, bringing the national total to 232 cases and 19 deaths since the start of the 2026 transmission season, according to the weekly surveillance report published by the National Public Health Organisation (EODY) on 27 August.
The rise of roughly 48 per cent over the previous week's 157 cases makes this Greece's heaviest season since 2018, when 317 infections and 51 deaths were recorded. All of 2025 produced 96 cases and nine deaths.
Of the 232 patients, 165 developed central nervous system disease — encephalitis, meningitis or acute flaccid paralysis. All 19 deaths were in patients over 65, with a median age of 85. Seventy-three people remain hospitalised, 26 of them in intensive care, while 124 have been discharged.
Attica is the epicentre. EODY has investigated cases in 61 municipalities across 18 regional units, with Eastern Attica worst affected: 17 cases in Spata-Artemida and 13 in Markopoulo Mesogaias.
EODY president Theodoros Vasilakopoulos attributes the surge less to mosquito numbers than to infection rates within them. Trap sampling shows only marginally more mosquitoes than last year, he told ERTnews, but a far higher share carrying the virus — despite some 30 per cent more spraying than in 2025. A winter among the warmest in 150 years and a wet spring left standing water across Attica; migratory birds, the virus reservoir, did the rest. He expects significant numbers until mid-September and a retreat by late October.
The picture is continental. ECDC data to 26 August record 877 locally acquired cases across 15 countries and 124 affected areas, led by Italy with 428. Cyprus has reported two, after a 2025 season with none; a man in his seventies with no travel history remains in intensive care in Nicosia with encephalitis. The health ministry describes the cases as sporadic — but the vector mosquito is endemic to the island.
Photo: Newsit - Eurokinissi