Dengue Fever Warning For Gulf States

Thanks to a damp climate and proximity to the Caribbean and Mexico, the Gulf Coast states are threatened with an epidemic of dengue fever, a potentially deadly mosquito-borne illness, a public health researcher said Monday.

"It has become a problem in all the Gulf Coast states, particularly in warm, wet urban areas like Houston, Miami and New Orleans," said Frank Cortez-Flores, a researcher at California's Loma Linda University School of Public Health.

There are four varieties of the dengue fever virus, and no vaccine for any of them, Cortez-Flores said Monday at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene annual meeting in Houston. The mildest form is characterized by flu-like symptoms and a rash on the feet or legs. He said about half who contract the most serious form - dengue hemorrhagic fever - die.

The disease is among the leading causes of childhood death in Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and India, he said.

Cortez-Flores said Texas, where several outbreaks were reported in the 1990s, has the most cases in the United States, in part because of poor hygiene, sewer systems and water drainage in its 1,500 colonias, substandard settlements along the border where about 400,000 people live.

He said many people have had a mild form of dengue fever but are unaware of it, mistaking it for the flu. They remain carriers for life and, if bitten by a mosquito, they can spread the disease.

"Mosquitos are flying syringes, and mosquito control measures are the backbone of dengue prevention and control," he said.

One Texas man died in July of dengue hemorrhagic fever, the first in the state to die this year from the disease. He is thought to have contracted the disease in Bangladesh. Last December, a South Texas girl died from the fever, which state health officials believe she contracted in Mexico.

Last year, there were 51 cases confirmed by the state health department, 16 in South Texas. Other cases are believed to have been contracted in Brazil or Mexico. About 7,000 dengue cases were reported in northern Mexico in 1999.

The last major epidemic in Florida was in 1935, when 15,000 Miami-area residents were infected. Since then, fewer than 100 cases have been reported because of mosquito eradication programs. Florida public health officials, however, have said they fear an increase in cases because the disease is prevalent in the Caribbean and because of a large influx of international travelers to the state.

Although nearly eradicated in the 1960s, the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the disease is now abundant in North and South America and the Caribbean and lives year-round in South Texas, Cortez-Flores said.

Increased air travel to tropical countries, urbanization, global warming and more tropical storms in recent years led to a rise in the number outbreaks in the Western Hemisphere, he said.

Dengue fever, also known as break-bone fever because of excruciating muscle an joint pains that accompany it, infects tens of millions of people worldwide every year.

Cortez-Flores said government and community control efforts are usually simple and successful. They include disposing of standing water in discarded containers, birdbaths, or old tires. Adequate window screens also help prevent bites, he said.

By Mary Lee Grant