In Sarasota County, so far, four people have contracted malaria.
The Florida Department of Health says they all have been treated and have recovered, but the entire state is under a mosquito-borne illness advisory.
In Florida, we are no strangers to mosquitos, especially in the summer. It’s the perfect storm for mosquito-borne illnesses to strike.
The Sarasota cases are malaria's first to spread within Florida since 2003.
“I think it’s just random, you know. I think everything just came together at the right moment that led to the local transmission,” shares Eva Buckner.
Buckner with the University of Florida is an expert on mosquito-borne diseases.
She explains that depending on the type of mosquito, a different disease can be spread.
In the case of the Zika virus, the last outbreak in 2017, those mosquitos only take blood from humans.
But the mosquitos that carry malaria have a more comprehensive range of subjects. This is a good thing for humans, as the infection rate is much lower.
“You know mosquitos can only fly so far; this is most likely going to be very, very isolated,” she states.
Florida 24 Network spoke to a spokesperson with the Florida Department of Health, who shared that they take an intergovernmental approach in cases like this. The Department of Health works with local agencies for routine testing, studies, and monitoring.
When they find a case, they issue alerts like the one from Monday and help local governments communicate their actions to their communities.
But Buckner says this work doesn’t just happen once there has been an infection, but year-round.
“Ideally, they are going to want to prevent any human cases from occurring; that’s always their goal,” she says.
In Sarasota County, according to the Herald-Tribune, they are treating swamps, woodlands, and permanent bodies of water with insecticide. They are also doing aerial and ground spraying in the areas where the cases happened.
While no cases have been detected elsewhere, Palm Beach County says they will be aerial spraying 165,000 acres west of a military trail a half hour after sunset starting Wednesday.
In Miami Dade County, they are recording and studying mosquito populations year-round.
A spokesperson with the mosquito control department tells me that the county has been under a mosquito-borne illness alert since April because of the dengue virus. The county has 300 mosquito traps they check weekly and conduct truck sprays bi-weekly in areas prone to mosquito larvae.
While Buckner does not expect more malaria cases to pop up outside Sarasota County, she says exercising precautions is essential.
