The most locally-acquired malaria cases in the U.S. since 20 years ago are clustered in Sarasota County, where there have been six cases since late May. A Texas man diagnosed with malaria transmitted by a local mosquito in the Longhorn State is number seven.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a public health alert, as has the Florida Department of Health.
Malaria is one of the world's greatest public health problems. It infects about 219 million people each year, killing about 660,000 of those - mostly children in Africa.
Getting malaria from home-grown mosquitos in America is very rare anymore. Nearly always, people are bitten overseas and then feel the flu-like symptoms back here. In 2003, eight people in Palm Beach County became ill with malaria that testing later found came from mosquitoes here rather than overseas.
"This is not a panicking thing, but it's also not something where we should say, 'Well, it's so unusual, we shouldn't worry about it,' Dyann Wirth, an infectious diseases professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NBC News. “It's a warning to keep surveillance up."
A mosquito transmits diseases to humans through parasites, bacteria, and viruses when it sticks its six-pronged proboscis into a person’s skin for a blood meal and leaves its infected saliva behind.
Dr. Manuel Gordillo, an infectious disease specialist at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, told the same network news station the hospital treated four of the state's malaria infections. Two were homeless, he said, and the four SMH treated were admitted suffering from fever and dehydration.
"Some of the cases were sort of neglecting the symptoms and they presented way late with other complications," he said.
The number of mosquitos that transmit diseases to humans is small compared to the total number of species. The majority pose little if any risk because they either don’t feed on humans or they lack the ability to transmit pathogens.
But enough do have that capability to make mosquitos the world’s deadliest creature.
The state department of health in Sarasota County said aerial and ground spraying to kill mosquitos is underway in the region of Southwest Florida south of Tampa Bay.
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