What to know about dengue fever as Florida reports 1st death and cases rise
Close-up of a mosquito biting human skin. (Joao Paulo Burini/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Florida Department of Health confirmed the state’s first death from dengue fever this year as cases of the mosquito-borne illness continue to rise.
The department did not provide any details about the patient including name, age, sex or residence.
The Tampa Bay Times, which first reported the death, described the patient as an 80-year-old Tampa woman who died on Sept. 4.
The FDOH did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.
For the week ending Sept. 12, Florida has confirmed 152 locally acquired cases of dengue, according to data from the state health department.
This is the highest number recorded since 2023, when the state saw 189 locally acquired cases over the course of the year, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
Hillsborough County — which includes Tampa — has reported the most cases so far this year with 134, according to the FDOH. Other counties with confirmed cases include Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach, Pasco and Pinellas.
Dengue viruses are spread through bites from infected Aedes species mosquitoes, mostly found in tropical and subtropical regions, according to the CDC. These mosquitoes are also responsible for spreading Zika and chikungunya viruses.
Dengue can be caused by dengue virus strains 1, 2, 3 or 4. A person also can be infected with dengue multiple times over the course of their life.
About one in four people who contract dengue develop symptoms which typically last two to seven days and are usually mild. This may include fever, rash, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, joint pain and bone pain.
About one in 20 infected people will develop severe dengue, which can lead to shock, internal bleeding and, in some cases, death, the CDC said.
There are no disease-specific treatments for dengue. The CDC recommends rest, fluids and over-the-counter medications to relieve symptoms. Patients with severe illness often need to be hospitalized and receive additional supportive treatments, such as intravenous fluids.
The CDC warns patients not to take aspirin or ibuprofen; it can trigger inflammation or bleeding of the stomach lining.
Currently, there is no dengue vaccine available in the U.S. In 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine for children between ages 9 and 16 who have a laboratory-confirmed previous dengue virus infection and live in areas where dengue is endemic, but it has since been discontinued.
Methods to help prevent dengue infection include using effective mosquito repellents, wearing long-sleeve shirts and long pants when outside and staying in places with air conditioning when possible. The CDC also recommends emptying containers of still or stagnant water to eliminate places where mosquitos can breed.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
Adi, 38, has been struggling to access health services for her daughter Camila, 10, who was injured a few months ago, due to the high cost and limited services. (Mauro Jose Medina Garcia/The International Rescue Committee)
(NEW YORK) — As Venezuela continues to recover from powerful twin earthquakes that rocked the north-central part of the country in late June, humanitarian organizations are warning of a “dire” situation on the ground.
The earthquakes, which officials say killed more than 4,400 people and injured more than 16,000, have displaced thousands of Venezuelans.
Aid workers told ABC News that countless people are in need of psychosocial support, in addition to those recovering from earthquake injuries.
Many Venezuelans are also suffering from chronic conditions — such as diabetes and hypertension — and are struggling to get care in the aftermath of the natural disaster.
Additionally, there has been a rise in reports of skin conditions and gastrointestinal diseases due to a lack of clean water and poor sanitation conditions, the workers said.
“The situation on the ground is pretty dire in terms of humanitarian needs,” Aisha Majid, a media manager at the international NGO Save the Children who is currently based in Caracas, told ABC News. “I’ve been here for a week, and there are thousands of families who are displaced on the streets.”
Mobile clinics treating wide range of conditions
Aid workers told ABC News that hospitals in Venezuela are currently overwhelmed treating people injured by the earthquakes, adding that some of the backlog predates the earthquakes.
“There are thousands of patients seeking help, and there aren’t enough doctors or hospitals or primary healthcare facilities,” Claudia Manresa, a regional compliance legal manager for the humanitarian organization Project HOPE in Latin America who is based in Venezuela, told ABC News. “There also aren’t enough medications, so this crisis joins a system that was already overwhelmed.”
Mobile clinics have been helping to fill some of the gaps. Manresa said Project HOPE has two mobile medical units running every day and, as of July 9, they have treated about 2,000 patients.
Save the Children is running a mobile clinic treating both patients with earthquake-related injuries, as well as other health needs including infections and chronic conditions. Majid said the organization is hoping to set up several mobile clinics across the capital of Caracas and the city of La Guaira, which was hit hard by the earthquakes.
Majid recalled that she visited a mobile clinic earlier in the month that Save the Children ran on the northeastern outskirts of Caracas through a local partner, which treated about 150 patients in around four hours.
“The second the clinic opened, there was a queue of people waiting to receive services, which just tells you how much in need people are, and the doctors in the clinic were working nonstop all day, just seeing patient after patient,” she said.
Everardo Esquivel, associate director for communications for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), told ABC News that many healthcare facilities were damaged in the earthquakes. As a result, he said people lost access to primary care and follow-up care.
Thirty-eight hospitals were damaged by the earthquakes, with the main referral hospital in La Guaira exceeding capacity within one day, according to the IRC.
The IRC’s mobile medical unit has been trying to help manage the increase in patient care, providing medicine for those with chronic conditions, including hypertension and diabetes, as well as antibiotics for certain conditions, he said.
Esquivel explained that there’s been a rise in skin conditions and diarrheal diseases due to the lack of clean water in the aftermath of the earthquake. Many shelters have virtually no access to toilets or showers, he said.
“People don’t have access to clean water and to properly clean wounds every day, so they get infections,” he said. “So, it’s two cases [at the mobile clinics]: it’s people with chronic diseases or in need of regular treatment and people who got new diseases related to the situation after the earthquakes.”
Need for psychosocial support
Humanitarian workers told ABC News there are also mental health issues that may arise after the earthquakes.
The World Health Organization said almost all people affected by emergencies experience psychological distress, which generally improves over time, but a fraction of people will go on to develop mental health conditions.
Manresa said Project HOPE is providing what aid workers refer to as psychological first aid, with a psychologist team deployed in La Guaira, offering different activities for kids and for adults.
She said the organization also has several phone lines that people can contact if they need help.
Children are particularly vulnerable. After a disaster, they may develop mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A 2017 review of eight studies of children following natural disasters found that 4% to 23% experienced chronic symptoms, with persistently elevated PTSD over time.
Majid, with Save the Children, said she’s met several children who are experiencing trauma after the earthquake.
Majid recalled meeting an 11-year-old boy who told her he’s scared when he sees cracks in the ground because he thinks it means the Earth will open again. She noted that another boy told her he’s scared to use the bathroom nearby because there is a crack in it.
“What we’re seeing is that there is a huge need for psychological support for children, and this is something that we provide through safe spaces that we run in affected areas,” Majid said. “And this is a place where children can come, they can play for a while.”
She noted that the organization has psychologists and specialists in mental health working with the young people there.
“It’s so important that children not only have a place where they can play but a place where they can also safely express their emotions and find a way to connect with the trauma and the grief that so many of them have been through,” she said.
Viviane Nzale, a health worker responsible for triage, stands at a screening post at the entrance of Mongbwalu General Hospital while monitoring patients and visitors entering the facility as they respond to the continuing Ebola outbreak here on June 12, 2026 in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo. (Michel Lunanga/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have reported a record one-day increase in Ebola cases since the current outbreak was first detected one month ago.
The DRC Ministry of Health reported 72 new confirmed Ebola cases on June 13, bringing the total number of cases to 782. Additionally, 29 deaths were recorded, bringing to 181 the number of fatalities that have occurred in the last month.
The majority of cases are still concentrated in three provinces in the northeast part of the country: Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. Two new health zones, Nia-Nia in Ituri and Mabalako in North Kivu, reported cases for the first time, increasing the number of affected health zones to 31, according to the Ministry of Health.
Contact tracing remains a concern. Health officials said only 56.5% of identified contacts have been followed up on, far below the desired 90%-95% target needed to contain the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
DRC health officials say they’re still experiencing community hesitance as well as shortages of essential medicines and infection-control supplies.
Meanwhile, Uganda has reported 19 confirmed cases, in large part linked to cross-border transmission from the DRC, and two deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
Last week, United Nations agencies warned that children in the eastern DRC could become increasingly affected by the Ebola outbreak. The U.N. said it may be difficult to accurately track the number of children who may be affected by the outbreak due to inefficient surveillance.
Although most infections have been among adults, “as the outbreak evolves, we must be prepared for increasing household transmission which means we may see more children affected in the days ahead,” Dr. Douglas Noble, UNICEF global lead for public health emergencies and global incident manager for Ebola, said on Friday.
“These are already very vulnerable children, so the capacity for this community to absorb any additional stressors was already stretched to breaking point,” he said.
In past Ebola outbreaks in the DRC, children “made up a significant share of cases and an even greater share of deaths, with the youngest facing the highest fatality rates and many left orphaned or separated from caregivers,” Noble said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department recently announced plans to provide $50 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which describes itself as “a global partnership working to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats,” to help develop vaccines and treatments against the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola that’s driving the current outbreak.
The State Department further said it has committed more than $270 million directly to the Ebola response, with U.S.-funded partners screening more than 6,300 people in Ituri, supporting 100 health facilities and carrying out 200 safe burials.
Stock photo of a doctor examining a patient’s skin. (Lordhenrivoton/STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Merck and Moderna announced Wednesday that a personalized mRNA-based cancer vaccine succeeded in a large, late-stage trial among high-risk patients with melanoma.
The individualized vaccine, when paired with the existing immunotherapy, Keytruda, is the first and only combination regimen that demonstrated success in potentially extending melanoma patients’ lifespans.
In Phase 3 trials, the regimen significantly reduced the risk of cancer returning or spreading. The trial was conducted among patients whose high-risk melanoma had been surgically removed.
The combination treatment regimen pairs the personalized vaccine with Merck’s Keytruda, which had previously been used to treat the cancer alone.
The treatment showed a 49% reduction of melanoma return after patients underwent surgery and a 59% reduction of metastasization of the cancer to distant organs.
Key questions surrounding regulatory review of the vaccine remain.
The Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the vaccine. The agency will review the full data once it has been collected and submitted.
While the FDA has already approved other cancer vaccines, this new treatment represents a step forward in the field as it uses mRNA technology and personalized treatment for each patient.
Merck and Moderna plan to present data at an upcoming international medical meeting where they hope to engage regulators on filing submissions for approval of the regimen, the companies said in a joint press release.
Dr. Ahmad Tarhini, an oncologist at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, told ABC News that he expects the treatment to be approved based on very positive trial results and made available to patients likely by early 2027.
The vaccine uses genetic information from patients’ individual tumors to identify and attack the cancer.
“It’s what we call individualized neoantigen therapy, where we take the cancer itself, we do genetic sequencing and try to define a unique mutational fingerprint of the cancer itself,” Tarhini said.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, with about 112,000 new cases expected in 2026, according to the American Cancer Society.
The treatment is considered relatively safe, according to the companies. The most common side effects include fatigue, sore arm and chills.
Treatments utilizing mRNA technologies are being used in trials for other forms of cancer, including that of the bladder, kidney, lungs, stomach and pancreas, according to Tarhini.
“I think it will certainly improve the outcome of our patients,” Tarhini said. “We are, you know, excited about this development. My expectation is this will eventually change the standard care of our patients.”
