Florida Reports Rare Case Of Malaria | Weather.com - The Weather Channel

• The person is presumed to have contracted malaria from a local mosquito bite.
• Malaria cases are rare in the U.S., and most are related to overseas travel.
• Weather plays a big role in malaria.

A​ rare case of a person being infected with malaria from a local mosquito bite is being reported in Florida.

State health department offices in neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties, on Florida's West Coast just south of Tampa Bay, issued an advisory on Monday alerting residents to the infection. A news release said the counties were "responding to one confirmed case of malaria among an individual who spent extensive time outdoors."

C​hristopher Tittel, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health in Manatee, added more details in an email to weather.com Wednesday.

"It's presumed that the individual was bitten by an area mosquito infected with the disease," Tittel said.

(​MORE: 7 Things Florida Newcomers Should Know About Hurricane Season)

A​bout 2,000 cases of malaria are diagnosed nationwide each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vast majority are in people traveling from countries where malaria is more prevalent, including South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

A​t total of 488 cases of malaria have been reported in Florida over the past 10 years, according to data from the Department of Health. Of those, only one is confirmed to have been locally transmitted.

"I don't think that malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that people need to be concerned about in Florida, given the fact that locally acquired malaria is so rare in our state and also in our country," Eva Buckner, an entomologist with the University Of Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, told weather.com in an interview Wednesday.

B​uckner said more common diseases like West Nile and dengue are bigger worries.

H​ow Does Malaria Spread?

M​alaria is transmitted by certain species of female anopheles mosquitoes, which are present throughout most of the continental United States.

P​eople with malaria aren't contagious, but mosquitoes that bite them can pass the malaria parasite to other people they bite.

S​ome types of malaria are more dangerous to humans than others. The recent case in Florida is one of the less deadly strains, the health department said.

A​t one time, malaria was a major health issue in Florida and other parts of the United States. In fact, the CDC was formed in 1946 specifically to combat the spread of the disease.

"Thankfully, there was a huge effort starting in probably about the early 1900s to eradicate malaria from the United States and Florida because malaria was so common in the U.S. and in our state at the time, and it had such a huge impact and caused so much mortality," Buckner said.

C​ases in the U.S. are now so few that the disease is considered eradicated.

G​lobally, it's another story. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2021 about 247 million people in 85 countries contracted malaria and 619,000 died. Children under the age of 5 are among the groups most vulnerable.

A malaria vaccine is being administered to children in a pilot program in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.

What Role Does Weather Play?

"Where malaria is found depends mainly on climatic factors such as temperature, humidity, and rainfall," the CDC says on its website.

Temperature in particular plays a role. One of the most severe types of malaria can't survive below 68 degrees.

In parts of Florida where it's generally warm all the time, mosquito activity is year-round.

"Certainly in the state of Florida, we have conditions where it's warm and humid and especially when you think about mosquitoes, these are conditions that are very favorable to the production of mosquitoes," Buckner said.

A​ changing climate brought on by global warming is expected to influence what types of mosquitoes thrive where, and in turn could spread disease into new areas.

Weather.com reporter Jan Childs covers breaking news and features related to weather, space, climate change, the environment and everything in between.

The Weather Company's primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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