Dengue Fever

Miraculously enough some rain fell a couple of days ago when a thick thundercloud swept the Lower keys from Key West to Big Pine. The air, as a result is clear, colors are crisp and dust has abated at least for a while. And mosquitoes are starting to reappear months behind schedule. The newspaper has had a couple of complaints about mosquito control not doing it's job of course but I've seen the trucks out collecting samples and spraying so I know that's not true. Mosquitoes are just one of the local hazards of living down here but nowadays we hear a great deal about dengue fever. The Mosquito Control District put this ad in the paper advising where the highest incidence of dengue has been reported, green is good, yellow isn't and orange is really not.More than 20 years ago I survived a bout with dengue myself that I contracted during an epidemic in El Salvador. At the time there was a civil war going on and I was much more concerned about being shot than bitten and though no bullets aimed at me hit me, a mosquito did. It was alarming at the time as hundreds of malnourished highly stressed Salvadorans died but I was a highly stressed reporter who was well nourished and I had a nasty attack of the flu. It lasted longer than my girlfriend's patience, a woman who was not the nurturing sort as I recall, especially when it came to ailing boyfriends. So it is with reports of dengue every summer in the Keys. Sensible precautions with repellent it seems to me should be ample. Then I think of all the people who shrug off the benefits of a flu shot each fall and i wonder at the hysteria caused by dengue.

Unless you have Latin skin like me or wear a big straw hat like this trio, you probably should worry more about sunburn this summer, and eventual melanoma than dengue. But I apply sunblock and repellent copiously, just in case. As should you if in the Keys.