Mosquitoes capable of spreading deadly Zika virus found in Britain for first time

Specialist teams have been dispatched by the UKHSA to eradicate the colony before it can become established and spread further.

While individual Aedes aegypti specimens have previously been detected in Britain, no reproducing population had ever been recorded until now – ordinarily found across Africa and Asia and historically unable to survive in the UK's cooler climate.

The colony was most likely identified after a resident reported the insects through a mosquito submission website run by the UKHSA.

Though the precise location has not been disclosed, photographs shared with The Telegraph indicate at least one of the properties where the mosquitoes were discovered is a well-maintained Victorian house in a middle-class neighbourhood.

Dr Jolyon Medlock, who leads medical entomology and zoonoses ecology at the UKHSA, said: "It is expected that in a warming climate, we will continue to see incursions of invasive mosquitoes and increased reports of them being able to survive in the UK."

These tropical mosquitoes have been gradually advancing northward through Europe as temperatures have risen across the continent.

Dr César López-Camacho, a researcher at the University of Oxford, said: "The timing of this detection is particularly interesting because the UK has just experienced its provisionally hottest summer on record."

Elevated temperatures create conditions that are significantly more favourable for the insects, he explained.

"Warmer conditions can accelerate mosquito development, extend the period in which mosquitoes remain active and, critically, increase the rate at which viruses such as dengue or chikungunya replicate within a competent mosquito," the doctor added.

The record-breaking summer heat may have provided exactly the environment needed for Aedes aegypti to not merely survive in Britain but to successfully breed and establish a colony for the first time.

Government modelling had previously forecast these mosquitoes would be unlikely to gain a foothold in Britain before 2040, but the colony in the capital suggests that timeline may need revising.

Should the species become permanently established, illnesses such as dengue fever – which triggers high temperatures and intense joint pain and can prove fatal, especially among the elderly and young children – could eventually become commonplace across southern England.

For now, however, the UKHSA stressed the risk to the public remains low, with no evidence anyone has been infected by the newly discovered colony.

Professor Tom Solomon, director of The Pandemic Institute in Liverpool, said: "A mosquito would first have to bite someone carrying a virus and then, after the virus had developed inside it, bite another person. There is no evidence that this has happened."

Dengue and Zika do not normally circulate in Britain, but a traveller returning from a country where these diseases are endemic could bring the virus back with them.

The threat posed by mosquito-borne illness across Europe was highlighted last week, when German authorities reported two fatalities from malaria after six people were bitten by a single mosquito at Frankfurt airport.

Dengue cases have emerged in Italy, France and Spain in recent years as the insects have become established in southern Europe, where in the first half of 2026, 137 dengue cases were recorded among British travellers returning from regions including Southeast Asia and South America.

Dr Medlock urged residents to eliminate standing water from gardens and outdoor spaces, including in buckets, containers, paddling pools and plant pots, and encouraged the public to submit photographs or specimens through the UKHSA's mosquito watch scheme.