Dengue Fever in Florida: 485 Local Cases in 2026, With Miami-Dade Under a Mosquito-Borne Illness Alert
Florida's locally acquired dengue count reached 485 for the year in the health department's Oct. 18-24 report - 60 new cases in one week - and Miami-Dade County, with nine local cases, sits under the state's higher mosquito-borne illness alert.
Florida's dengue outbreak keeps growing. The Florida Department of Health's weekly arbovirus surveillance report for October 18-24 counted 485 cases of locally acquired dengue in 2026, reported from twelve counties, with 60 of those cases reported in that single week, according to USA Today's and the Herald Tribune's reporting on the state report. The Herald Tribune described the 485 total as the largest dengue outbreak in the United States in decades.
The outbreak is centered on Florida's Gulf coast - Hillsborough County accounts for 385 of the cases and Pinellas County for 67 - but South Florida is on the list: Miami-Dade County has nine locally acquired cases, Broward County one and Palm Beach County one, with Orange County also at nine. Miami-Dade is among the counties under a mosquito-borne illness alert, the health department's higher warning level.
Dengue - also called breakbone fever for the pain it can cause - can present as a flu-like illness with severe muscle aches and joint pain, along with fever and sometimes a rash, according to the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County. With Halloween weekend putting much of Miami-Dade outdoors after dark, health officials' standing advice in the state's reporting is to prevent mosquito bites - the cases counted so far are a floor, because many infected people never feel sick or never get tested.
