Tuesday, May 25, 2010

When Mosquitos Attack

ABC News: Dengue Fever Hits Key West:
More than two dozen cases of locally-acquired dengue fever have hit the resort town of Key West, Fla., in the past nine months, officials from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Although not the first cases of home-grown dengue in the U.S., or even in Florida, the outbreak highlights the need for physician vigilance regarding this and other formerly exotic tropical diseases, the CDC said in the May 21 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"The re-emergence of dengue in Florida as well as the threat posed to the U.S. from other emerging mosquito-borne arboviruses (e.g., chikungunya) emphasizes the necessity for strong vector-borne surveillance and mosquito control infrastructure to rapidly identify and control outbreaks of dengue or other mosquito-borne diseases," MMWR's editors wrote in a commentary accompanying the report.
The "cure" for dengue fever and other mosquito-borne illnesses is, in my opinion, DDT. We used to have malaria in the US before the mosquitoes that carried it were eradicated with DDT. Here's a recipe for DDT, but, note, it is banned here in the States.

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