| Summary: | 1998). Environmental factors, including human activities, that enhance population densities of vector mosquitoes (heavy rains followed by floods, irrigation, higher than usual temperature, or formation of ecologic niches that enable mass breeding of mosquitoes) could increase the incidence of West Nile fever. The 1996-97 outbreak of West Nile fever in and near Bucharest, Romania, with more than 500 clinical cases and a case-fatality rate approaching 10 % (1-3), was the largest outbreak of arboviral illness in Europe since the Ockelbo-Pogosta-Karelian fever epidemic caused by Sindbis virus in northern Europe in the 1980s. This latest outbreak reaffirmed that mosquitoborne viral diseases may occur on a mass scale, even in temperate climates. West Nile virus is a member of the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of the genus
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