Background
The author writes that the appearance of the West Nile virus in New York (USA) in 1999 and the unprecedented panzootic that followed, "have stimulated a major research effort in the Western Hemisphere and a new interest in the presence of this virus in the Old World," which developments have been driven in part by the fact that "a great deal of attention has been paid to the potential impact of climate change on the prevalence and incidence of mosquito-borne disease."

What was done
Reiter reviews what researchers have learned about the subject and reports the worldwide implications for public health.

What was learned
The distinguished researcher from the Insects and Infectious Disease Unit of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, sums things up in his final paragraph, where he states that "one point is clear: the importation and establishment of vector-borne pathogens that have a relatively low profile in their current habitat is a serious danger to Europe and throughout the world," which state of affairs, in his view, "is a direct result of the revolution of transport technologies and increasing global trade that has taken place in the past three decades," modern examples of which include "the global circulation of dengue virus serotypes (Gubler, 1998), the intercontinental dissemination of Aedes albopictus and other mosquitoes in used tires (Hawley et al., 1987; Reiter, 1998), the epidemic of chikungunya virus in Italy (Angelini et al., 2007), and the importation of bluetongue virus and trypanosomiasis into Europe (Meroc et al., 2008; Moretti, 1969)."

What it means
If the Saint Louis encephalitis virus -- a closely related counterpart to the West Nile virus in the New World, which has been the subject of research in the Americas since the 1930s -- were to be introduced into the Old World via some means of transportation, Reiter concludes "there is every reason to believe that it would spark a panzootic analogous to that of the West Nile Virus in the Western Hemisphere." And he further concludes that in view of what his review reveals, "globalization is potentially a far greater challenge to public health in Europe than any future changes in climate (Tatem et al., 2006)."

References
Angelini, R., Finarelli, A.C., Angelini, P., Po, C., Petropulacos, K., Macini, P., Fiorentini, C., Fortuna, C., Venturi, G., Romi, R., Majori, G., Nicoletti, L., Rezza, G. and Cassone, A. 2007. An outbreak of chikungunya fever in the province of Ravenna, Italy. Eurosurveillance 12: eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?Articleid=3260.

Gubler, D.J. 1998. The global pandemic of dengue/dengue haemorrhagic fever: Current status and prospects for the future. Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore 27: 227-234.

Hawley, W.A., Reiter, P., Copeland, R.S., Pumpuni, C.B. and Craig Jr., G.B. 1987. Aedes albopictus in North America: Probable introduction in used tires from northern Asia. Science 236: 1114-1116.

Meroc, E., Faes, C., Herr, C., Staubach, C., Verheyden, B., Vanbinst, T., Vandenbussche, F., Hooyberghs, J., Aerts, M., De Clercq, K. and Mintiens, K. 2008. Establishing the spread of bluetongue virus at the end of the 2006 epidemic in Belgium. Veterinary Microbiology 131: 133-144.

Moretti, G. 1969. [African trypanosomiasis detected in France: Difficulties of diagnosis]. Presse Medicale 77(41):1404.

Reiter, P. 1995. Aedes albopictus and the world trade in used tires, 1988-1995: The shape of things to come? Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association 14: 83-94.

Tatem, A.J., Hay, S.I. and Rogers, D.J. 2006. Global traffic and disease vector dispersal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 103: 6242-6247.