Treasure Coast Dengue Risk Surges as Doctors Miss Local Cases

Treasure Coast residents in Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties face a growing risk of locally acquired dengue fever that emergency physicians may be failing to recognize, according to new peer-reviewed research published this year.

The study, Ginsburg S. et al., Jacep Open, 2025, examines autochthonous dengue — cases contracted locally in Florida rather than through international travel — and argues that physicians trained to associate dengue only with travel history are systematically missing the diagnosis in patients who have never left the state. The Indian River Lagoon watershed, a warm, humid corridor that supports the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes known to carry the dengue virus, creates conditions across the Treasure Coast that researchers consider increasingly hospitable to local transmission According to available information,.

The research does not provide county-level case counts for Martin, St. Lucie, or Indian River counties, but its core finding carries direct implications for Treasure Coast emergency departments, including Cleveland Clinic Martin North and HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce: when clinicians do not consider dengue as a possible diagnosis for patients without travel history, testing is never ordered and cases go uncounted.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne viral illness that causes high fever and severe joint and muscle pain. In serious cases, it can progress to dengue hemorrhagic fever, a potentially life-threatening condition involving dangerous drops in blood pressure and internal bleeding.

The study's title — drawn from a medical aphorism — underscores the diagnostic gap: a physician unaware that dengue circulates locally cannot recognize it in a patient sitting across from them. Florida has recorded confirmed autochthonous dengue transmission in previous years, and public health researchers warn the range of transmission is expanding northward along the peninsula According to available information,.

The St. Lucie County Health Department advises Treasure Coast residents to use EPA-registered insect repellent, wear long sleeves during peak mosquito hours, and eliminate standing water in containers around their homes — the primary breeding sites for dengue-carrying mosquitoes. The department could not be immediately reached for comment on local case counts.

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