Florida health officials are tracking a surge in mosquito-borne illnesses, with dengue reaching levels the state has not seen in decades and a West Nile virus advisory still in effect in Leon County after a locally acquired case was confirmed this summer.<\/p>\n
More than 250 dengue cases have been reported in Florida among people who did not leave the state, and experts say the mosquitoes that spread the virus do not need much water to multiply. \u201cIt\u2019s really quite unprecedented. I was extremely surprised when this started happening a few months ago,\u201d said Dr. Nicole Iovine, a UF Health hospital epidemiologist.<\/p>\n
The latest state report counts 252 locally acquired dengue cases through Sept. 26, including 62 added in just one week. Hillsborough County accounts for 223 of those cases. Broward County has also confirmed its first local case of the year, making it the eighth Florida county with local transmission.<\/p>\n
Mosquito breeding sites are often close to home, said Ward Schuller, operations director at Paul\u2019s Pest Control. \u201cIt\u2019s usually always going to be in planters, leaf littering and gutters, standing areas of water, ditches, things of that nature. That\u2019s always where it\u2019s at,\u201d Schuller said.<\/p>\n
Iovine said it can take only a tiny amount of standing water for mosquitoes to reproduce. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t take much water \u2014 standing water. It can even be just a bottle cap. That is enough for a mosquito to breed and lay hundreds of eggs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dengue can cause fever, severe headaches and intense muscle and body aches. The pain can be so severe that the disease is sometimes called \u201cbreak-bone fever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schuller said reducing mosquito populations begins with eliminating places where they can breed. \u201cThe best thing to do is actually population control and source elimination \u2014 remove leaf litter from gutters, excessive mulch around the house. Empty any bird baths at least two times a week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Iovine said she is also watching what could happen beyond the current mosquito season. \u201cIf we have this warm, wet winter and they don\u2019t die off, we could be seeing dengue through next year potentially. So I am definitely concerned about that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Health officials recommend using EPA-registered mosquito repellent, wearing long sleeves and pants when possible, and draining standing water around homes to reduce the risk of mosquito bites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida health officials are tracking a surge in mosquito-borne illnesses, with dengue reaching levels the state has not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-420539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420539","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=420539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}