Mosquito borne diseases are top of mind at a conference underway this week in Syracuse. Some of the world’s leading epidemiologists want to get ahead of the Dengue virus before the mosquito-borne disease soars any further across the globe. One of those experts is Laura Adams with the Centers for Disease Control in Puerto Rico. She says Dengue is most common in Central and South America and the Caribbean, but it’s not unheard of in the U.S.
“We've seen the highest numbers of cases reported from Florida this year and most of those cases are among people who've traveled to an area where dengue is common outside of the U.S. and then came back and got tested here in the U.S. and found out that they had dengue.”
She says there are a few cases of people in the Florida Keys who didn’t travel but contracted the disease locally. The CDC says global incidence of Dengue this year has been the highest on record. Cases so far in 2024 are twice as high as the total recorded in all of 2023.
Here in Central New York, Adams says it’s not a major concern because of the type of mosquitoes that carry Dengue, even with climate change factored in.
“Those mosquitoes, as it's gotten warmer, they can live in other areas where when it's warm enough for them to survive, they don't like cold weather."
Onondaga County Health Commissioner Dr. Kathryn Anderson says it's unlikely Dengue will become an issue here. She was among the experts at the conference hosted by Upstate Medical University.
“We thankfully don't seem to have the vectors here in Onondaga County to spread Dengue," Anderson said. “We do see imported cases into New York City and to Florida across the country where people have traveled, and they bring Dengue back. And as we're hearing at this conference, that can sometimes set up little chains of local transmission.”
Anderson says the bigger threats in Onondaga County are West Nile and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, which have been detected in mosquito traps for two consecutive weeks.
