As of June 5th, there were 24 confirmed casesof dengue fever and 18 cases of chikungunya according to health officials, in the state of Florida.
So what are these diseases? Dengue is a flu-like disease.
Interestingly half of allinfected show no symptoms. For the other half however, it causes high fever,rash, muscle and joint pain. Most patients recover in 2-7 days.
Chikungunya issimilar to Dengue causing fever, rash and muscle and joint pain. Fortunately after infection patientsacquire lifelong immunity. So far all cases of these diseases are the result ofpeople traveling to the Caribbean where they were infected by mosquito bite.
The problem is that these infected people can be bitten by domestic mosquitoes especially Aedes aegypti aned Aedes albopictus species and the disease can be logarithmically spread.
Both these species of mosquito are widespread across the Americas and unlike the mosquitos which spread malaria they are found in urban areas and thrive in big cities. More information can be found here.
