Just days after it was reported that residents in the Keys were being hit by the dangerous dengue fever, the Miami-Dade Health Department is reporting its first suspected case in the county.
Health officials have scheduled a news conference for Thursday morning to discuss the case further.
Officials said mosquito inspectors are going door to door in the Miami Beach neighborhood where the patient lives.
Dengue fever is a flu-like illness spread by the bite of a type of infected mosquito that is common in urban areas in the U.S. and Caribbean.
The Miami-Dade Health Department warned that this type of mosquito is found everywhere in the county.
More than 100 million cases of dengue are reported each year, though the illness is not spread from person to person. Symptoms run from a fever and rash on infants and young children to severe headaches, pain behind the eyes, and muscle and joint pains in older children and adults.
Local
There is no known vaccine or antidote for dengue.
On Tuesday, it was reported that five percent of Key West residents showed evidence that they'd been exposed to the virus that causes dengue fever, some of the first locally acquired cases reported in the state in four decades.
Thursday, the Monroe County Health Department announced that they had 16 confirmed cases so far in 2010, and that they were limited to a small area of Key West.
"All of our cases have been confined to a limited area of Old Town Key West," Monroe Health Dept. Administrator Bob Eadie said. "There is no indication whatsoever of any connection between the suspect case in Miami-Dade and Key West."
Health officials caution residents to use repellent, try not to be outdoors at dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most prevalent, and to remove standing water in which mosquitoes breed, from around their homes.
