Hillsborough County taxpayers are on the hook for more than $848,000 in emergency mosquito-control purchases that commissioners are only now being asked to approve. With another $250,000 possible, the total could pass $1 million.
The County Commission was scheduled to hear a dengue situational update at 10 a.m. Wednesday and to vote retroactively on three emergency purchases totaling $848,755.50. A separate item would formalize a mutual-aid agreement with the Lee County Mosquito Control District, which has been helping with aerial treatment. The county estimates the products for that help could cost another $250,000 from its dengue outbreak disaster fund.
County Administrator Bonnie Wise declared a local state of emergency Sept. 24, citing confirmed local transmission and the need for “immediate, aggressive and continuous” mosquito-control measures. The declaration lets the county buy supplies and coordinate resources faster and provides a path to reimburse eligible expenses. The information available did not say how much of the bill the county expects to recover.
An outbreak without recent precedent
The Florida Department of Health’s latest report counts 252 locally acquired dengue cases statewide through Sept. 26. Of those, 223 were in Hillsborough, about 89%. The county’s cases break down as 14 with July onset, 136 in August and 73 in September through the 26th. Nineteen mosquito pools in the county have tested positive for the virus, including three collected during the week of Sept. 20-26.
The Associated Press reported that state records and medical literature suggest this is the most locally acquired dengue cases in a single year for any state in the continental U.S. since at least the 1940s. Florida’s previous high was just under 200, in 2023.
Early signs of a slowdown
Eric Long, operations superintendent for Hillsborough County Mosquito Management Services, said the most recently returned mosquito pools tested negative and that new cases are slowly declining. He said the county will keep treating regardless, and that officials want to “keep the pressure on these mosquitoes.”
The county relies on two kinds of aerial work. Daytime helicopters apply a larvicide called BTI to small pockets of standing water where mosquitoes breed. At night, crews use ultra-low-volume equipment to apply an EPA-registered insecticide against adult mosquitoes.
The front line is the backyard
Aedes aegypti, the species that spreads dengue, breeds in small containers around homes rather than in large wetlands. Long urged residents to dump standing water on their property. The county also recommends long sleeves and repellent containing DEET or picaridin.
The state’s next surveillance report, covering Sept. 27 through Oct. 3, was expected Wednesday and should show whether human infections are leveling off.
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