Officials in Sarasota and Manatee counties say they continue to be proactive in the fight against mosquitoes after four local malaria cases triggered statewide and national alerts.
Mosquito control departments are conducting ground and aerial pesticide treatments to kill mosquitoes in both counties. Malaria is not transmitted person-to-person but when a mosquito becomes infected after biting an infected person.
Chris Lesser, director of the Manatee County’s control district, said the agency is primarily using helicopters to spray because they cover between 15,000 and 20,000 acres (6,070 to 8,082 hectares) in one night. A truck can only cover around 1,000 acres (404 hectares) a night, he said.
“We really want to focus on killing the adult mosquito before they have the opportunity to feed on one person that may be infected with malaria and then transmit that disease to a second person,” Lesser said.
He said the time frame for when a mosquito can become infected to when it can transmit the disease to a person is about 14 days.
“So, we’re trying to get in there about once every seven to 10 days and really knock down the mosquito population. And that process will continue until the public health alert that we’re currently under is lifted,” Lesser said.
“It's a curtain. We're trying to keep the malaria mosquitos from coming into our county through our southern border by using aggressive mosquito control activities.”
Officials in Sarasota County area also using similar tactics to control mosquitos, the county's health department said in an advisory.
The actions come after four malaria cases were confirmed in Sarasota County over the past month. On Monday, the Florida Department of Health issued a mosquito-borne illness alert and urged residents to be mindful of exposure to mosquitoes.
The health department said all of the individuals who contracted the disease were bitten by a mosquito or mosquitoes in the Sarasota area.
This is unusual because a vast majority of malaria cases in the U.S are detected after someone has traveled to another country.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the local cases are the first in the United States since 2003.
On Tuesday, a health alert was issued by the CDC that noted that another malaria case has been confirmed in Cameron County, the southernmost county in Texas.
“Listen, the conditions are favorable," says Jae Williams, press secretary for the Florida Department of Health. "It's not just some rogue one mosquito. People need to be paying attention.
“We know we are going into the Fourth of July holiday. We know the summer’s only getting hotter and wetter over the next couple of months. So, we just wanted to give Floridians a big kind of heads up, put the whole state on notice.”
An initial mosquito-borne illness advisory was issued in Sarasota and Manatee after the first case was reported in late May. That was followed by a second case, and then two more, Williams says.
“As soon as it crossed over from one to two confirmed cases, it progressed to an alert,” Williams says, comparing it to the system of issuing a hurricane watch versus a hurricane warning — when a storm is imminent.”
Christopher Oujio, an assistant professor at Florida State University that studies mosquito-borne illnesses, says the outbreak is concerning but that the disease is treatable.
The CDC says that the patients had contracted P. vivax, a strain of malaria that typically produces milder symptoms or can even be asymptomatic but still can prove fatal, especially in those who are pregnant and in children.
"This form of malaria is not as vicious as some of the ones that are in other parts of the world,” he says. “But that being said, we want to be vigilant but not necessarily panic."
Oujio says those infected with malaria typically show flu-like symptoms, including muscle aches, fatigue and nausea.
“One of the tell-tale signs is this sort of periodic alternation between fevers and sweats and chills about every eight to 12 hours, and that actually corresponds to the parasite expanding and exploding some of your red blood cells in your body," he said.
Residents should take precautions like applying mosquito spray, avoiding areas with high mosquito populations such as retention ponds, and wearing long pants and shirts when possible - especially during sunrise and sunset when mosquitos are most active.
The threat concerns Kathleen Gibson-Dee, who lives on Terra Ceia Island in Manatee County.
Even though no malaria cases have been reported in Manatee, Gibson-Dee says that she now routinely uses bug repellent while working in her garden.
“I don’t go out without it,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “And we don't go out in the evening because you can see clouds and clouds of bugs now. They may not all be mosquitoes, but there’s certainly mosquitos out there.”
Another Terra Ceia resident, Tom Lyons, says news of the malaria cases “makes me take mosquito protection a little more seriously."
The mosquito population thrives in Terra Ceia because "it's an island surrounded by a lot of shallow water and mangroves, and ideal places for mosquitoes,” Lyons said.
About 2,000 U.S. cases of malaria are diagnosed each year — the vast majority in travelers coming from countries where malaria commonly spreads.
Since 1992, there have been 11 outbreaks involving malaria from mosquitoes in the U.S. The last one occurred in 2003 in Palm Beach County, where eight cases were reported.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
