In May 2023, a person caught malaria from a bug bite in Sarasota County, Florida. In response, the Florida Department of Public Health went to war with Anopheles, better known as the marsh mosquito.
Ground teams poured insecticide into standing water. Airplanes sprayed down remote wetlands with larvae-killer. Finally, after two months, marsh mosquitoes — and new malaria cases — became scarce again.
“It was a full-on assault on these mosquitoes,” says Florida Department of Public Health Press Secretary Jae Williams. “And I’ll tell you, it was very, very successful.”
