Southern Europe This section includes general information about health hazards as reported by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The region includes Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Portugal (with the Azores and Madeira), Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain (with the Canary Islands), Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. The area extends from the broadleaf forests in the north-west and the mountains of the Alps to the prairies and, in the south and south-east, the scrub vegetation of the Mediterranean. Among the arthropod-borne diseases, sporadic cases of murine and tick-borne typhus and mosquito-borne West Nile fever occur in some countries bordering the Mediterranean littoral. Both cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis and sandfly fever are also reported from this area. Recently, an increasing number of leishmania/HIV co-infections have been reported in France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Tickborne encephalitis, Lyme disease, and rodent-borne hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome may occur in the eastern and southern parts of the area. Of the foodborne and waterborne diseases, bacillary dysentery and other diarrheas and typhoid fever are more common in the summer and autumn months, with a high incidence in the southeastern and southwestern parts of the area. Brucellosis can occur in the extreme southwest and southeast and echinococcosis (hydatid disease) in the southeast. Fasciola hepatica infection has been reported from different countries in the area. Cases of cholera have been reported from some countries in the area. The incidence of certain food-borne diseases, e.g., salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis, is increasing significantly in some of these countries. Hepatitis A occurs in eastern European countries. Poliomyelitis risk is very low in most countries. Hepatitis B is endemic in the southern part of eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania). Rabies in animals exists in most countries of southern Europe.