UK tourists with 'unexplained bruise' after Greece, Spain, Italy holiday warned

People returning to the UK with an "unexplained bruise" following a summer holiday have been warned. People heading to the European Union and other countries have been warned over presenting with a bruise upon returning from their summer trip.

Diseases are now cropping up in popular European destinations such as Spain, Greece, and Italy and Claudia Tavani, a travel guru, warned: "One of the most important tips for people spending their holidays in a tropical destination is to always cover up to avoid mosquito bites, or to wear mosquito repellent, possibly with DEET.

"A mosquito bite may seem harmless, but consequences may be disastrous. It could transmit malaria, dengue or yellow fever, for example. But there's more." She said: "For example, you may get a warble fly larva transmitted by a simple mosquito bite.

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"These flies live a symbiotic relationship with mosquitoes, on which they deposit their eggs. It takes just a bite for the mosquito to deposit those eggs on a human and up to 10 weeks for the larva to fully develop and come out of the body, where it carves its nest."

"Symptoms can be an unexplained bruise where the mosquito bit, which then turns into an extremely itchy wheal that occasionally secretes fluids," she went on. "The lesion and the presence of the larva also causes an inflammation of the lymph nodes which must be cured with cortisone.

"Typically, the insect comes out when fully developed or extracted surgically." Mosquito-borne diseases include chikungunya and dengue fever as well as Eastern and Western equine encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis and La Crosse encephalitis.

Other disease you could be suffering from if you have a mosquito bite and a bruise in the aftermath include things like malaria and other conditions, too, including the likes of St. Louis encephalitis and also the West Nile virus.