The Miami-Dade area of Florida has seen more than a dozen cases of dengue fever this year, and health officials are starting to get alarmed.
According to the Miami Herald, the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County confirmed two more cases of the disease Monday, bringing the annual tally there to 14.
The department said the two cases are linked geographically, but it would not go into more detail about where they might have originated.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dengue fever is common in more than 100 countries. Humans contract the virus through Aedes species mosquitos, which also carry the chikungunya and Zika viruses.
Symptoms of dengue include nausea, vomiting, rashes, and aches and pains, the CDC reports.
As of Dec. 4, the CDC said there were 1,026 cases of the virus across the United States in 2019. Florida is one of three states with cases reported to be local (12). The state also has the highest number of travel-associated cases (321), well ahead of California (177).
In the Americas region, which includes North, Central, and South America, along with the Caribbean area, the Pan American Health Organization reported in November there were 2,733,635 dengue cases in 2019.
"At this point, the general consensus is we are facing a very serious epidemic of dengue in the region at the moment. We are very close to Christmas time, and you know how people in Latin America travel a lot back to their countries of origin, where we have this epidemic," said Florida International University's Carlos Espinal, according to the Herald.
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