Dengue warning for South Florida
Published:Wednesday | July 28, 2010 | 6:14 PM
A health expert has warned that an epidemic of dengue fever in the Caribbean and Latin America has increased the risk of an outbreak of the sometimes deadly mosquito-borne virus in South Florida.
Bio-climatologist and dengue expert, Dr Douglas Fuller, said Florida's proximity to affected countries, the flow of people from there and similar tropical climate factors have raised the probability of an outbreak in Florida after an absence of decades.
He has described the risk as substantial.
Some 17 thousand cases of dengue fever have been reported this year across the Caribbean through early June.
The Pan American Health Organization says deaths have been reported in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago.