MIAMI (AP) — Health officials say a patient has acquired dengue fever in Miami-Dade County.
The county's health department says it's the first locally acquired case of the flulike illness that's sometimes called "breakbone fever" because of the severe joint pain it can cause.
Dengue fever is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, a common mosquito in the southeastern U.S. and the tropics.
In 2010, county health officials confirmed a case of dengue fever, but it wasn't known where the man had picked up the disease. Officials at the time said there had not been a case of locally acquired dengue fever in Miami-Dade County since the 1950s.
Dengue fever was once thought eradicated in the U.S. A small number of patients in Florida were diagnosed with the illness in 2009 and 2010.
