"I feel confident we have had a good public health response," said Andrea Berry, an infectious disease expert from the University of Maryland, in an interview with the Washington Examiner."This is alarm bells for the public health workers. It's not alarm bells for people."Four people in Florida and one in Texas tested positive for malaria in late June, marking the most recent U.S. domestic malaria infections since a contained outbreak in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2003.
While record-setting temperatures may be contributing to the bug problem, other evidence suggests that urbanization and diminishing residual levels of the insecticide DDT have had a larger effect on increasing certain types of mosquito populations than temperatures alone. Kilpatrick told the Washington Examiner that the insects that transmit malaria, Anopheles mosquitoes, thrive in the wetlands that are often drained for urbanization, decreasing their overall possible public health risk. However, mosquitoes that transmit other deadly viruses to humans, such as West Nile virus and Dengue, are increasing because they thrive in city or suburban environments.
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