The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning doctors to be on the lookout for malaria cases after five people who had not traveled outside of the country fell ill with locally acquired infections in Texas and Florida. In a health alert Monday evening, the agency expressed concern that the country could see a rise in imported cases due to increased international travel this summer.
The Florida and Texas cases are the first locally acquired malaria infections in the US since 2003, the agency highlighted.
So far, there have been four cases in Florida’s Sarasota County and one case in Texas’ Cameron County, which sits at the state’s far eastern border with Mexico, where malaria is endemic. There is no indication that the Florida cases and the Texas case are linked in any way. The four infected people in Florida, who have all since recovered, were in close geographic proximity to each other, and the Texas case occurred in a person who spent time working outdoors.
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