Brit holiday warning as ‘biblical plague’ of mosquitoes, cockroaches & bedbugs to swarm Spanish resorts during heatwave
BRITS holidaying in Spain this summer are being warned they face a plague of mosquitoes, cockroaches and bedbugs this summer.
Holidaymakers face the worst heatwave in 20 years as temperatures hit 43C, bringing with it wildfires as well as swarms of insects.
The heat followed torrential rain, providing ideal conditions for the insects to breed at “lightning speed”, say Spanish environment group ANECPLA.
The problem has been made worse by councils stopping prevention campaigns due to costs and labour shortages during Covid, they claim.
“This summer is expected to be worse than usual,” said Jorge Galván, general director of ANECPLA.
"The exorbitant temperatures of the last few days and those to come, added to the torrential rains of spring, constitute the perfect storm for the populations of mosquitoes, cockroaches, ticks, wasps, bedbugs to grow at lightning speed."
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The National Association of Environmental Health Companies called on councils to take action.
The group's president, Sergio Monge said: "There are very serious diseases that until recently sounded very foreign to us in Spain
“However, we have already begun to suffer major outbreaks, as is the case, for example, of Lyme disease or Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, transmitted by ticks."
According to data from the World Health Organisation, diseases transmitted through bites are currently causing more than 700,000 deaths each year worldwide.
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Most of them caused by the mosquitoes bites capable of transmitting diseases as dangerous as malaria, zika, dengue or chikungunya, among many others.
Despite their tiny size the insects are considered the deadliest animals on the planet.
An outbreak of West Nile fever in 2020 killed eight people in Spain.
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Recent wildfires saw almost 50,000 acres of land ravaged in the Sierra de la Culebra mountain range.
Local officials issued evacuation orders for 11 villages in the region as some 500 firefighters fought to extinguish the fast-moving blazes.