Florida

Malaria confirmed in Florida mosquitoes after several human cases

Published

1 year ago

June 29, 2023

Malaria confirmed in Florida mosquitoes after several human cases

Multiple mosquitoes gathered by authorities in Florida’s Sarasota County have tested positive for malaria at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab, as the response has ramped up to stamp out further spread of the illness. Four locally-acquired cases of malaria were recently reported in Florida, along with one in Texas — the first known instances of the mosquito-borne illness being transmitted within the U.S. since 2003.

Three mosquitoes carrying the parasite that causes malaria were collected from the same woodlot, Sarasota County Mosquito Management Services told CBS News in a statement. They were among more than a hundred samples that have been shipped to the CDC for testing.

Local authorities have targeted their eradication efforts in that area to wipe out Anopheles mosquitoes, the insect that spreads malaria, through spraying efforts from trucks, aircraft and on foot.

“Efforts continue to test more Anopheles from all areas of concern as well as treatments,” the county said.

News of the mosquitoes testing positive was previously reported by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

A spokesperson for the CDC confirmed it has received mosquito specimens from both Florida and Texas in support of their investigations into the cases, which prompted a nationwide health advisory issued by the agency last week.

In Texas, so far all mosquitoes have tested negative for the parasite, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services told CBS News.

Texas reported a single case this month, in a resident who had not traveled outside the state. Officials in Cameron County said the case was a resident of another county, but an investigation had determined the patient contracted the parasite while in the county.

Spokespeople for both Texas and Florida’s health departments did not confirm whether additional suspected cases are being investigated in their states.

It can take weeks for people to first start feeling sick after being infected with the parasite. Early symptoms of malaria infections can look similar to the flu, with signs like fever, headache, and fatigue.

However, untreated cases can quickly become dangerous. An estimated 619,000 people died from malaria around the world in 2021, the World Health Organization estimates. It is most common in tropical climates.

Anopheles mosquitoes

Before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted travel, the CDC had tracked hundreds of malaria cases reported to the agency in the U.S. each year.

Most cases were typically reported in the summer and fall, nearly all stemming from being bitten during recent international travel. So-called “airport” malaria cases are also possible, with mosquitoes themselves traveling inside airplanes, or very rarely it may spread through contaminated blood transfusions.

Humans cannot spread malaria to others like a cold or the flu.

Mosquitoes spread malaria between people by feeding on the blood of infected humans. The parasite then replicates for weeks inside the mosquito, before being transmitted into new humans the mosquito feeds on.

While the CDC believes risk of further local spread of malaria “remains extremely low” nationwide, it acknowledged that the Anopheles mosquitoes that can spread malaria are found in much of the country.

“Consider the diagnosis of malaria in any person with a fever of unknown origin, regardless of international travel history, particularly if they have been to the areas with recent locally acquired malaria,” the CDC urged in its advisory.

Authorities raced to trap and test Anopheles mosquitoes during the country’s last local outbreak of malaria in 2003, among residents of Florida’s Palm Beach County, while ramping up efforts to curb mosquito populations.

At the time, that had been the first “outbreak of malaria with extended transmission” reported anywhere in the country since 1986. But none of the mosquitoes collected showed evidence of the parasite in CDC testing.

“This outbreak demonstrates the potential for reintroduction of malaria into the United States despite intensive surveillance, vector-control activities, and local public health response to educate clinicians and the community,” CDC officials wrote at the time.

Alexander Tin

CBS News reporter covering public health and the pandemic.

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Florida

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Published

33 minutes ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Florida State football had an embarrassing 2024 campaign where it finished with a 2-10 record. This is not the expectation of what the Seminoles are all about.

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Head football coach Mike Norvell understood the urgency as he could not allow the program to snowball into a laughing stock after a productive 13-1 season in 2023. Norvell was heading into a pivotal sixth season with his job on the line.

As a result, he went out and hired a ton of new coaches on his staff, including Gus Malzahn, Tim Harris Jr., Herb Hand, Tony White, Terrance Knighton, and Evan Cooper. This was uncharted territory for Norvell since he had never had to fire multiple coaches like that.

Nonetheless, we were wondering how the Seminoles’ 2025 recruiting class would play out with new coaches as well as the struggling year in 2024.

The recruiting class did well, and it finished with the 20th-best in the 247Sports Composite rankings (prospects can still sign in February). In this article, I want to highlight three of the most underrated signees from Florida State’s 2025 recruiting class.

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Florida

U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Published

9 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Noah Kent is heading home.

The 2024 U.S. Amateur runner-up is transferring to Florida, he announced Saturday. The sophomore at Iowa, whose hometown is Naples, Florida, entered the transfer portal earlier this month, and he made his decision to join coach J.C. Deacon and the 2023 national champions come next fall.

Because of NCAA rules, Kent won’t be eligible to compete for Florida until the 2025-26 season, but he can finish his sophomore year with the Hawkeyes. This fall, he placed in the top 13 all four tournaments, his best finish being a T-5 at the Fighting Irish Classic.

And, of course, he has a tee time at Augusta National Golf Club in the spring.

Kent will essentially be the fourth member of Florida’s 2025 signing class, which ranked second in the country on signing day. He’ll join a talented roster that includes Parker Bell, Mathew Kress and Jack Turner, though with new NCAA roster limits coming, there’s bound to be some unprecedented roster turnover in college golf before the start of the 2025-26 season.

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State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

Published

16 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

There are two NHL teams in Florida: the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

They are separated by about 250 miles and have been fierce rivals since the Panthers joined the NHL for the 1993-94 season. The Lightning joined the League a season earlier.

Florida (21-11-2) and Tampa Bay (18-10-2) meet for the first time this season at Amalie Arena in Tampa on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, CRIPPS, SN, TVAS).

The teams have played each other 157 times in the regular season; the Panthers have gone 77-51-19, and the Lightning are 70-64-13. There have been 10 ties.

For years, the rivalry was a parochial affair, deeply important to hockey fans in the state but under the radar nationally. Lately, though, Florida supremacy has often meant NHL supremacy.

The Panthers are the reigning Stanley Cup champions and defeated the Lightning in five games in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round last season to start that title march. They reached the Stanley Cup Final two seasons ago, going on a miracle run before losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. The season before that, they won the Presidents’ Trophy with an NHL-best 122 points but lost to the Lightning in a second-round sweep, marking the second straight time that their noisy neighbors ended their season.

The Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021 before reaching a third straight Final in 2022, losing to the Colorado Avalanche. Tampa Bay won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2018-19.

This season, each team is on course for another appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and has a point percentage of better than .600.

So which team has the merits to claim bragging rights in this all-Florida showdown as the rivals face off for the first time this season? That’s the question debated by NHL.com senior writers Amalie Benjamin and Dan Rosen in the latest installment of State Your Case.

Benjamin: Let’s lay out what the Lightning have accomplished in their 32-season history: They’ve won the Stanley Cup three times, becoming the first team from Florida to win it when they took the championship in 2004. But that doesn’t come close to what they’ve accomplished during the past 11 seasons, starting in 2013-14, when they became a powerhouse. They’ve been to the Stanley Cup Playoffs 10 times in those 11 seasons, making the Stanley Cup Final in a whopping four of them. Let me repeat that: Four trips to the Cup Final in the past 11 seasons, winning twice, in 2020 and 2021. And if that’s not enough, they made two more trips to the Eastern Conference Final, in 2016 and 2018. Forget Florida’s team. They’re the team of the past decade in the entire NHL.

Rosen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what have you done for me lately? Florida’s team fluctuates. It was the Lightning. It is the Panthers. They’ve got the Stanley Cup. They went to the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row. Sure, a few years ago, this wasn’t even a debate. Florida’s team, the Panthers? Please. No shot. Even the top executives with the Panthers would tell you that. But things change. With success come the riches. Just think about the past three seasons for the Panthers: Presidents’ Trophy winners in 2021-22, Stanley Cup Final in 2022-23, Stanley Cup champions in 2023-24. The Lightning lost in the 2022 Cup Final, lost in the first round in six games the next season and lost in the first round in five games to the Panthers last season. Florida’s team is Florida.

Benjamin: OK, sure, you have a point. Florida has done pretty darn well lately. But let’s see how history will judge the state of Florida and its hockey teams. Hall of Famers? The Lightning have got ’em. Though Steven Stamkos has moved on to the Nashville Predators, the Hall of Fame is going to come calling, and the forward will go in as a member of the Lightning. Add in coach Jon Cooper, forward Nikita Kucherov, defenseman Victor Hedman and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and you’re talking at least five future Hall of Famers on a single team. That’s not just good, that’s historically good. It’s a group whose names are synonymous with winning, with the Stanley Cup, with the state of Florida. That’s powerful. That says the Lightning win this debate, no question.

Rosen: I have a question. Is Aleksander Barkov not paving his way to the Hall of Fame? Is Sergei Bobrovsky, with a Stanley Cup ring, 400-plus wins and two Vezina Trophy wins as the NHL’s best goalie, not a lock for the Hall of Fame? Is Paul Maurice, who could finish his career with at least the second-most coaching wins of all time, along with his Stanley Cup ring, not also a lock for the Hall of Fame? In the way-too-early department, could Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart be future Hall of Famers? I lied. That’s four questions. But you get the point. You brought up the Hall of Fame and I countered. That’s why the Lightning do not win this debate without question. Could they win it? Yes, certainly, if we were having this debate in 2023. It’s almost 2025. It’s a different world. It’s the Panthers’ world, at least in Florida. The Lightning are just living in it. At least the sun is still shining on them too.

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