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Malaria Discovered In Florida
Palm Beach Post
July 21, 2004

With global warming, tropical mosquito-borne diseases are hitting the U.S. In Florida, the health department says there's a "very high" chance that mosquitoes with malaria are flying around, after one man was found to be infected with the disease.

In the Palm Beach Post, Rochelle Brenner quotes Tim O'Connor, of the Palm Beach County Health Department, as saying, "He was outdoors and very active and bitten by mosquitoes [and] during that time he was highly infectious." The man would have about two weeks to infect another person and that person would start to see symptoms in about two weeks. Symptoms include headaches, vomiting, chills, and high fever or sweating.

Authorities are hoping that the disease hasn't spread, since the mosquito population is at its lowest level in 10 years because of the dry weather. Ed Bradford, who is in charge of mosquito control for the county, says Anopheles, the type of mosquito that transmits malaria, isn't common in the area. "Where this gentleman lives, there just aren't the canals or that type of environment where many of these [mosquitoes] live," he says. "But it only takes one."

"Temperature is only one of many, many factors in malaria, and in many cases it's totally irrelevant," says entomologist Paul Reiter. "Many climate scientists don't know anything about the complexities of malaria…More rainfall sometimes means more malaria, it sometimes means less." Mosquitoes reproduce faster in hot, damp climates but higher temperatures might trigger floods that wash away the pools of water in which malaria larva breed, or dry them up. He says that in 1999, when West Nile virus was first found in New York, "it also broke out in Volgograd in Russia, formerly Stalingrad, which is not known for high temperatures."

Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds. The disease could arrive in form of insects stowed away on airplanes. In some countries, airplane cabins are sprayed with insecticide before passengers are allowed to leave the plane. Climatologist Alistair Woodward says, "In terms of malaria and many other (mosquito-borne) diseases…a changed climate will stress health care systems in some parts of the world."

Reiter says malaria was defeated in most in developed countries by draining marshes. Animals once lived in the same buildings with people, but when farmers started building barns, this drew mosquitoes away from humans to feed on cows and other livestock. When people started moving to cities, they developed window glass, which kept insects out.

 

 

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