Live Science By Nicoletta Lanese 6/27/2023
Four people in Florida and one person in Texas recently caught malaria within the U.S. Similar cases haven't been reported since 2003.The mosquito-borne illness malaria has sickened five U.S. residents with no recent travel history, meaning they caught the disease locally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned Monday (June 26).
Before these cases, locally acquired mosquito-borne malaria had not been reported in the U.S. for 20 years, since 2003 when eight people in Palm Beach County, Florida caught the disease, according to the CDC health advisory.
The five recent cases took place within the past two months. Four happened in "close geographic proximity" in Sarasota County, Florida. The remaining case was in Cameron County, Texas, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported. The CDC advisory notes that the cases were "mosquito-transmitted," meaning those affected got malaria from mosquito bites, which is the most common way of catching the disease.
Each year, about 2,000 people test positive for malaria in the U.S., but the vast majority have recently traveled internationally to regions where the disease is endemic, meaning it regularly spreads there, the CDC notes. However, because mosquito species that can carry malaria live in the U.S., there's a potential risk for local mosquitoes to pick up malaria parasites from an infected person and thus reintroduce the disease in the area.
(Malaria was eliminated in the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s, thanks to a campaign largely aimed at eliminating mosquito breeding grounds and spraying mosquito-killing pesticides.)
More:
https://www.livescience.com/health/viruses-infections-disease/5-malaria-cases-in-florida-and-texas-were-acquired-locally-cdc-warns
