Florida dengue outbreak is largest in continental US in decades, AP reports

Florida’s current dengue outbreak is the largest the continental United States has seen in decades, according to the Associated Press.

State health officials reported this week that more than 250 locally acquired cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been tallied so far this year, with the vast majority in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. Federal officials say their data on dengue outbreaks is limited, but available information from state health departments and medical journals suggests no state has recorded this many cases in a calendar year since at least the 1940s.

Puerto Rico is consistently hit harder by dengue, but in the continental US Florida usually gets the most locally transmitted cases. The state’s previous worst year was 2023, when just under 200 locally spread cases were reported.

Officials in Hillsborough and surrounding counties have declared local emergencies, and workers in the Tampa area are spraying day and night to cut down the population of disease-transmitting mosquitoes.

Dengue — the mosquito-borne virus nicknamed “breakbone fever” for the excruciating pain some people experience — has killed one person in Florida this year: an elderly Tampa woman on September 4.

The outbreak follows a state of emergency declared in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties when locally acquired cases stood at around 190; the new AP assessment confirms the situation has grown substantially worse since then.

Sources

• http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/world-news/20261002/floridas-dengue-outbreak-now-largest-continental-us-decades
• https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-florida-dengue-outbreak-largest-continental.html
• https://www.lanacion.com.ar/usa/floridas-dengue-outbreak-is-now-the-largest-in-the-continental-us-in-decades-nid02102026/