If you have seen headlines this month lumping Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach together as "dengue counties," it is worth slowing down and looking at what the state actually says, because the three counties are not in the same position. The Florida Department of Health tracks two different tiers, an advisory and an alert, and getting them mixed up either overstates the risk where you live or understates it.
What the state's own numbers say this week
Florida's Department of Health arbovirus surveillance report for the week of August 30 to September 5, 2026 lists Miami-Dade County as currently under a mosquito-borne illness alert. Palm Beach County is currently under a mosquito-borne illness advisory, a lower tier than an alert (Source: Florida Department of Health, Florida Arbovirus Surveillance Week 35, floridahealth.gov, week of Aug 30-Sept 5, 2026). Those are two different official designations, not two versions of the same warning.
Broward County appears in neither list. It has zero locally acquired dengue cases recorded in Florida's 2026 case count, which names only six counties: Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach, Pasco, and Pinellas (Source: same DOH report). If you saw a headline citing 15 dengue cases in Broward, that number is travel-associated, meaning someone caught it abroad and brought it home. It is a real number, but it is not local transmission, and the same report is explicit that locally acquired and travel-associated are counted and mapped separately.
Why the distinction matters, not just the label
Locally acquired means a mosquito in that county bit an infected person and can now spread the virus to someone else nearby. Travel-associated means the infection came from outside Florida and, on its own, tells you nothing about the mosquito population where the patient lives. Conflating the two makes a county look like it has an outbreak when it actually has zero local transmission, and it can just as easily make an actual alert county sound less serious than it is.
The county carrying the most weight in this week's statewide count is not one of ours. Hillsborough, on the west coast near Tampa, has 95 of Florida's 111 locally acquired dengue cases for the year, with 82 of those showing an August onset (Source: same DOH report). Miami-Dade has 7 for the year, Palm Beach has 1, all with earlier onset dates. The season has clearly hit hardest somewhere else, but Miami-Dade's alert status and Palm Beach's advisory status are both still active and unchanged from earlier this summer.
What this means if you live in Broward
No official alert or advisory currently covers Broward, and that is worth saying plainly instead of folding it into scary regional language. It does not mean the yard-maintenance basics stop mattering. Mosquitoes do not check county lines, and the same rain-driven breeding cycle that is active in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach is happening in Broward yards too, it is just that no confirmed local case has been tied to it yet this year.
What actually helps
Keep dumping standing water after every rain, gutters, saucers, toys, tarps, anything holding even a capful. That is still the highest-value, zero-cost thing a homeowner can do, alert or no alert.
On professional treatment, keep the two products straight. A barrier spray treatment kills adult mosquitoes on contact and on treated foliage, with protection generally running 10 to 17 days depending on rain and regrowth. It is not a natural product and is not marketed as one. In2Care-style stations use a natural, biological larvicide against breeding sites before mosquitoes mature into biting adults. They solve different parts of the problem, which is why a heavy-rain summer benefits from both rather than either alone.
Bottom line
Miami-Dade: alert, active. Palm Beach: advisory, active. Broward: neither, and zero locally acquired cases on the books. That is the accurate picture this week. Treat your yard the same regardless, since the mosquitoes causing the bites you feel every evening do not read DOH bulletins.
Sources are cited inline. Questions about your own property? Call 561-443-3333 or request a free quote.