The Alachua County Health Department detected a significant increase in mosquito populations due to the large amount of rainfall last month. At the same time, 11 cases of mosquito-borne dengue fever have been confirmed in Martin, St. Lucie and Miami-Dade counties, among other areas in South Florida.
During surveillance, which detected an increase in general mosquito populations, officials also noted an increase locally in Asian tiger mosquitoes — which can carry dengue fever, said Paul Myers, administrator at the Alachua County Health Department.
“If the virus continues to move through Florida, and you have good Asian tiger mosquitoes in Alachua County, the virus could easily be introduced,” said Jonathan Day, professor of medical entomology at UF.
Alachua County could host the disease, Myers said, but an infected individual would need to come into the county and be bitten by a mosquito for the disease to take a foothold and spread.
“The fact that it is in the state, it certainly is a concern to public health officials,” he said. “(But) we don’t have teeming masses of infected humans running around.”
During the normal mosquito season, populations rise after the wet summer months and into early Fall, Myer said. Generally the population dies down with the first freeze.
Mosquito populations are actually lower than last year, which had Hurricane Sandy to blame for massive numbers, he said.
Still, the increase in mosquito population means one factor that increases the likelihood of dengue fever occurring in Alachua County has been fulfilled.
“So, you’re not immune,” Day said. “Alachua County is not immune to this.”
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 9/3/2013 under the headline "Mosquito populations are up"
