Hillsborough County is in the middle of what WUSF calls Florida’s biggest dengue surge in decades.
Carla Fry of the Florida Department of Health in Hillsborough County said unnoticed infections and a mosquito boom after August’s heavy rain are driving the outbreak.
Here’s what to know
Hillsborough had logged 223 confirmed cases by September 26, more than seven times as many as the rest of Florida’s counties combined, according to WUSF. Those cases are largely locally acquired, meaning people were infected by mosquitoes in Florida rather than during travel.
Peter Jiang, head of mosquito control for Hillsborough County, told WUSF that the weather swing created ideal breeding conditions for mosquito numbers to jump…