Officials confirmed that a locally-acquired case of dengue fever has been reported in Broward County amid an outbreak in Florida that authorities say is one of the largest in the continental United States. <\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Health in Broward said Monday that the first locally-acquired case had been reported in the county, which has already reported 20 travel-related cases so far this year, according to data from the week of Sept. 20-26. <\/p>\n
“DOH-Broward and Broward County Mosquito Control are coordinating surveillance, prevention, and control efforts,” the department said in a news release. Health officials did not provide information about the infected patient. <\/p>\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 485 cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been reported in Florida so far in 2026. Of these, nearly half have been acquired locally across eight counties.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe disease is spread by mosquitoes, and so far this year, there have been more than 250 cases identified across Florida. This breaks the record for the worst year in the state.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The vast majority of these locally-acquired cases (223) were in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa.<\/p>\n
There has been one dengue death in Florida this year \u2014 an elderly Tampa woman on Sept. 4. Officials in Hillsborough and surrounding counties have declared local emergencies, and workers in the Tampa area are spraying day and night to tamp down the population of disease-transmitting mosquitoes.<\/p>\n
Miami-Dade is among the affected counties with eight locally-acquired cases. Another 150 are travel-related, according to the Florida Department of Health. <\/p>\n
Dr. Lilian Abbo, an infectious disease specialist with Jackson Health System, said cases have been reported sporadically in the area and urged the public to keep up prevention measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no alarm situation, but we do need to take preventive measures,\u201d Abbo said.<\/p>\n
Federal health officials say their data on dengue outbreaks is limited. But available information from state health departments and medical journals suggests the Florida outbreak marks the most cases in a calendar year for any state since at least the 1940s.<\/p>\n
Puerto Rico is consistently hit hard by dengue, with numbers much higher than what’s seen in any of the 50 states. But in the continental U.S., Florida usually gets the most locally transmitted cases. The state’s previous worst year was 2023, when just under 200 locally spread cases were reported.<\/p>\n
What is dengue fever?<\/p>\n
Dengue is a disease transmitted mainly by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, a species that is present in Florida. <\/p>\n
Dengue can cause fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, a skin rash, and muscle and body aches. If you have these symptoms \u2014 especially after possible exposure to mosquitoes \u2014 authorities recommend consulting a health care professional.<\/p>\n
Prevention is one of the main tools to reduce the risk of infection. Authorities recommend eliminating standing water in yards and around homes, including containers, flower vases, old tires, and any object where water can collect after rainfall.<\/p>\n
They also advise using insect repellent and wearing clothing that covers arms and legs whenever possible. The Miami-Dade Mosquito Control Division continues to conduct surveillance and spraying in areas where a higher presence of these insects is detected.<\/p>\n
In addition, a person can be infected more than once, so authorities insist that prevention and mosquito control are essential to reduce transmission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials confirmed that a locally-acquired case of dengue fever has been reported in Broward County amid an outbreak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[15823,506,28,249,251,250,571],"class_list":["post-421193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward","tag-broward-county","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421193","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=421193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}