Texas confirms its first locally acquired dengue fever case in Cameron County with a spike in statewide cases.

Cameron County Public Health has detected an increase of mosquito-borne disease activity in the lower Rio Grande Valley. Health officials have identified two cases of West Nile Virus and one case of Dengue.

The first locally transmitted case of dengue fever in 2024 in Texas has been recorded in Cameron County, the Texas Department of State Health Services says.

Texas has seen the worst annual spike of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness that can be fatal, in more than 20 years, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. The state also saw its first report of a locally acquired — meaning a confirmed case in an individual who did not recently travel to an area considered at risk for the disease — case of dengue fever this year in a resident of Cameron County,

"Locally acquired" means that the people infected have no history of traveling to an area of the world where dengue normally spreads.

Texas recorded its first locally acquired case of dengue fever this year, state public-health officials said this week. The case was reported in Cameron County, which sits on the Texas-Mexico border with a population of around 425,