Blood donations suspended as Rome battles mosquitoes.
Rome mayor Virginia Raggi has ordered a complete suspension of blood donations in Rome's ASL 2 section, a public health area containing around two million people in east and southern Rome, due to an outbreak of the chikungunya virus.
The mayor has also ordered an immediate disinfection campaign to combat mosquitoes which spread chikungunya, a viral infection that causes acute fever and joint pain, and which so far has infected 17 people in the greater Rome area: six in the capital and 11 in the nearby coastal town of Anzio.
Raggi's order on 13 September followed a warning hours earlier from Italy's health minister Beatrice Lorenzin who claimed that the capital was not acting fast enough to halt the spread of the virus despite being notified about it some six days earlier.
Raggi's anti-establishment Movimento 5 Stelle administration reacted by blaming the Lazio regional government for not updating the city on the outbreak. However this charge was quickly rejected by the Lazio region which said that it informed the Campidoglio about the then four confirmed chikungunya cases at lunchtime on 8 September. The Lazio region administration, run by the centre-left Partito Democratico, has urged Raggi's administration to avoid creating controversy and to focus on the task at hand. The suspension of blood donations could last for 28 days, according to local media, with concerns that it could lead to a serious reduction in blood availability in the capital. 
The chikungunya virus, which rarely results in death but can lead to disabling effects, first broke out in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy ten years ago.