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The result was an epidemic of Asiatic cholera with about half a million cases and many thousands of deaths[18].

In the early 1980s, Aedes albopictus, the Asian tiger mosquito, entered Texas and Louisiana as larvae in pools of water in a shipment of used car tires, imported from the Philippines for retreading. The Asian tiger mosquito is very hardy. It survives cold winters and breeds in what golfers call "casual water" -- almost any body of water larger than a tablespoonful. It found an ecological niche, and rapidly spread along the eastern seaboard of the USA, into the Midwest, and up to and beyond the Canadian border. It has also expanded into new European territories [19].

The Asian tiger mosquito is an efficient vector for some dangerous diseases, including hemorrhagic dengue which resembles yellow fever but for which there is no vaccine, and several types of virus encephalitis. So far there have been a few cases only. But this is an epidemic, several epidemics, waiting to happen. We have almost no effective countermeasures against hemorrhagic dengue, or against many forms of viral encephalitis.

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