Broward County is under a mosquito-borne illness alert, joining Miami-Dade County as dengue spreads in South Florida.
The Florida Health Department reported two cases of locally-acquired dengue in Broward County in the department’s latest arbovirus surveillance report. Dengue fever comes from mosquitos that are infected with the virus.
So far this year, there have been 10 cases of the illness from people who got infected in the state. Almost 200 Floridians contracted the illness after traveling to a region where dengue is endemic. Most of those cases, 130, came from people who traveled to Cuba, according to the report.
Up until the Aug. 5 report, all local cases had emerged in Miami-Dade, with six of the county’s eight cases appearing in June and July.
Meanwhile, the department hasn’t reported any new cases of malaria from Florida for a month. The total number of locally acquired cases remains seven, according to the arbovirus report.
In previous years, Miami-Dade has been the epicenter of dengue in Florida. In 2022, all but three of the 65 locally acquired cases came from Miami-Dade, according to the last arbovirus report of that year. The rest came from Broward and Collier and Volusia counties.
The data available on the arbovirus reports goes back to 2010. The department reported the highest number of travel-associated cases, 823, last year. From 2010 to 2022, more than 200 people contracted dengue in the state and more than 2,031 got it while traveling.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence.
