It is always mosquito season in Florida and always a good time to be vigilant against mosquito bites due to the possibility of exposure to disease. On Wed. August 28, MidPoint hosted Dr. Tom Unnasch, Prof. Emeritus, USF College of Public Health, and Dr. Michael Teng, a professor of immunology at the USF School of Medicine to tell us all about the mosquito-borne viruses that are plaguing us in Florida and around the world. This was especially timely as Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced this week that he was hospitalized for several days with a case of West Nile Virus that he had caught from a mosquito in his backyard. Dr. Fauci said the virus “hit him like a truck” and it was the “sickest he had ever been from a virus.” We learned that Dr. Fauci’s case was a rare example of a serious bout of the West Nile virus that is more likely to affect the elderly and can result in lasting neurological issues, but which is usually asymptomatic in others. Because so many incidents of West Nile show no symptoms, cases of it are vastly under-reported.
Likewise, another mosquito-borne virus in the news recently caused the death of a person in New Hampshire. Eastern Equine Encephalitis, or EEE, is a virus that occurs naturally in many types of wild songbirds, including blue jays, tufted titmice, chickadees, catbirds, and cardinals. Birds infected with EEE are considered reservoirs for the disease, as they maintain high levels of the virus even though they don’t develop the disease. It spreads through the bite of an infected mosquito and can affect people of all ages. Unlike West Nile, 30%of people infected with EEE die from it. The symptoms of EEE are similar to many of the other mosquito-borne viruses and include fever, headache, vomiting diarrhea, and even seizures, and there are no known vaccines to prevent it. So, don’t get bit!
The latest plague of things that bite us in Florida is the Oropouche virus or Sloth Fever. This virus is mostly spread by midges or “no-see-ums” and some types of mosquitoes. The symptoms can be sudden fever, severe headaches, chills, joint pain, extreme light sensitivity and a rash that starts on the trunk and spreads to the extremities. Accordig to the FL Dept. of Health, there have been 30 cases of Oropouche virus reported in Florida this year, with 10 of them in the last week alone, including 5 in Hillsborough County. All of the reported cases were found in people who had recently traveled in Cuba. The symptoms of this disease typically last a week, but can recur days or even weeks later. It has been particularly devastating to pregnant women who experienced numerous adverse birth outcomes including miscarriage, fetal death, and microencephaly, or babies born with abnormally small heads. Dengue fever is another mosquito-borne virus that occurs in areas with reported Oropouche virus. There have been 25 cases of locally acquired dengue reported in Florida in 2024 so far, including in Pasco, Hillsborough, and Manatee counties in the WMNF listening area. Hillsborough is currently under a Mosquito-borne disease alert for dengue with 2 cases reported in June. But, the number of travel-related dengue cases is much higher with some 417 cases in Florida with most of them coming from Cuba, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina.
Climate change is a big contributor to the rise in mosquito-borne diseases. Fortunately, Florida maintains a robust surveillance system for mosquito-borne viruses using Sentinel Chickens that are tested regularly to alert us of the presence of these viruses locally.
According to Dr. Unnasch, our biggest disease danger in the US and Florida right now is from Bird Flu. He worries that we are not adequately surveilling our meat, dairy, and poultry industries to prevent the spread of bird flu which could morph into a pandemic that could rival our experience with Covid-19. There have been 13 cases of human bird flu transmission reported in the US so far, but the dangers of further spread are lurking. The biggest source of concern now is an outbreak in dairy cows that has spread across 8 midwestern states. The virus ravaged the poultry industry since 2022 destroying more than 90 million poultry to contain the spread so chicken and egg prices have risen. Unfortunately, the disease has now jumped from poultry to cows and the US Dept. of Agriculture has been slow to track that jump and slow to share information about the genetic sequencing of the virus which is necessary to develop vaccines and targeted treatments. Some experts are concerned that the USDA has a conflict of interest since their primary mission is to promote American agriculture, not regulate it and they are not equipped to address this threat. There are calls to transfer the response to bird flu to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control.
As of August 21, 2024, there have been no cases of H5N1 bird flu found in Florida residents or in dairy farms but the virus has infected wild birds, backyard chickens, and at least one dolphin, so vigilance is warranted. Dr. Teng tempered the dangers we discussed by reminding us that the government has improved access to personal protective equipment since Covid and has stockpiled medications like Tamiflu which can be used to treat bird flu, and, since Covid, we have better structures in place to ramp up vaccine development and production if necessary. However, he did warn us that it was very important to avoid raw milk and rare meat, poultry, and eggs to avoid exposure to bird flu. Bird flu is inactivated by heat so cooking to an internal temperature of 165 degrees F is recommended to kill bacteria and viruses.
Listen to the entire show here, or on the WMNF app, or as a WMNF Midpoint podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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