The malaria-carrying mosquito has reappeared in Italy, in Puglia to be precise, after 50 years. This is according to a study conducted by conducted by Donato Antonio Raele and Maria Assunta Cafiero of the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Puglia and Basilicata; Francesco Severini, Luciano Toma, Michela Menegon, Daniela Boccolini and Marco Di Luca of the Vector Borne Diseases Department of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS); and Giovanni Tortorella of the Veterinary Animal Health Service of the Lecce ASL and published in PubMed. In September 2022, a specimen of Anopheles sacharovi - a member of the Anopheles maculipennis complex and a historical vector of malaria in Italy, whose last report in our country, however, dates back to the late 1960s - was collected in the municipality of Lecce as part of the Residual Anopheles Surveillance Project and identified. This revelation led to the implementation of a targeted entomological survey in September 2023.