dengue fever re-emerges in houston....
Posted by
x (aka dmuck)
Oct 10 '13, 07:14
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Dengue fever, a virulent tropical disease thought to be eradicated from the United States in the 1950s, has re-emerged in Houston, according to a new study.
Baylor College of Medicine scientists are reporting the mosquito-borne virus has recently been transmitted in Houston, the first evidence the disease so prevalent in the developing world has spread to a major U.S. city in large numbers. In the past decade, it has been identified in Hawaii, south Florida and along the Texas-Mexico border.
"Dengue virus can cause incredibly severe disease and death," said Dr. Kristy Murray, a professor of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and the study's principal investigator. "This study shows that Houston may be at risk of an outbreak, that people need to be on the lookout."
Murray's team investigated the possibility that dengue might be in Houston because the area has the type of mosquitoes known to carry the virus and a dense population full of frequent travelers south of the border, where the virus is endemic. But the study, published Wednesday in the journal Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, found that most of the infections were transmitted in Houston.
There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus.
A pandemic outside the United States - hot spots are in India and Bangladesh, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico - dengue infects more than 100 million people a year, killing at least 25,000. Identified in nine tropical countries before 1970, it has spread to more than 100 today."
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