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Living on the edge of wetlands on the Italian island of Sardinia, Anna Rita Cocco is mourning the loss of her elderly father who died in a coma within weeks of a fatal mosquito bite.

"My father was full of life and used to walk for miles each day. I was expecting him to die at some point, but not suffering like that, taken from me by a mosquito," she said her late father, Bernardino, who died aged 80.

Italy was only declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1970, but now other lesser-known mosquito- or tick-borne diseases are on the rise.