Pasco County and Hillsborough County declared local states of emergency this week. Dengue fever cases spread through the Tampa Bay region. Health officials recorded nearly 200 infections across the area and confirmed one death linked to the mosquito-borne virus.<\/p>\n
The Pasco Board of County Commissioners issued its emergency declaration on Sept. 24. The order lasts seven days unless rescinded earlier, giving the county administrator and emergency management director authority to waive everyday procedures to protect public safety.<\/p>\n
Hillsborough County has recorded more than 130 dengue cases, making up 88% of the state’s total infections, according to data from Florida health officials. Between Sept. 6 and 12, the area logged 39 new infections. Doctors at Tampa General Hospital estimate they have treated more than 100 patients with the illness.<\/p>\n
Officials in Pasco say they found one mosquito infected with dengue. They confirmed two cases involving people. Pinellas County has reported seven total cases.<\/p>\n
“The body aches are so intense that it’s got this nickname as ‘break-bone fever,'” said Dr. Kartik Cherabuddi, chief hospital epidemiology officer at Tampa General Hospital, to Fox 13 News<\/a>. “It’s real, and I’ve seen patients \u2014 they hurt so bad, it’s the predominant thing that’s bringing them into the emergency room.”<\/p>\n Cherabuddi noted that about one in four infected people develop illness. Roughly one in 20 symptomatic patients develop severe disease. Common symptoms include joint, bone, and muscle pain, nausea, and pain behind the eyes.<\/p>\n “It’s the time the fever breaks. The next two days is when you can have more severe warning signs,” Cherabuddi added. “If you have severe abdominal pain, persistently throwing up, bleeding from the gums or other sites, difficulty breathing \u2014 and critically, that’s when the fever starts to go down is when these could develop. That’s when you absolutely have to go to the ER.”<\/p>\n The emergency declarations are expected to make it easier to get resources from the state. “They’ll be able to send additional resources, equipment, people to help with boots on the ground, chemicals that are needed to help combat the mosquitoes, within not just Pasco, but hopefully within our Tampa Bay region,” said Pasco County Commissioner Seth Weightman, according to Tampa Bay 28<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mosquito control crews are collecting and testing samples and spraying insecticide in areas where the virus could spread. Pasco is lending one of its two mosquito control helicopters to Hillsborough to help with spraying there.<\/p>\n Officials are asking residents to follow “Drain and Cover” principles to reduce mosquito breeding areas. Residents should check yards for containers and other areas that collect standing water, where mosquitoes can breed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pasco County and Hillsborough County declared local states of emergency this week. Dengue fever cases spread through the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[276,1338,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-411986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-pasco-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}