HAWAII ISLAND – The Hawaii Department of Health has confirmed 10 cases of “locally-acquired” dengue fever on Hawaii Island, and now says that one of the vector hotspots for infected mosquitoes is in South Kona, in the Ho’okena / Honaunau area. Health officials caution there are potentially more hotspots – and cases of infection – yet to be identified.

On October 29, Hawaii health officials announced they were investigating two confirmed cases of “locally-acquired” dengue fever on Hawaii Island, as well as four more probable cases. The Hawaii State Department of Health would not disclose any locations because of “concern for the privacy of the small number of individuals involved in the investigation.”

Today, State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park told Big Island Video News that those previous four probable cases have been confirmed, bringing the total confirmed dengue fever cases to ten.

The state is still unable to officially connect the confirmed dengue case count to the viral videos produced by Charles Trippy and Allie Wesenberg, who published a day by day account of their visit to Hawaii Island, and Wesenberg’s subsequent illness, on their YouTube channel CTFxC. The channel has over 1.5 million subscribers. One of the areas that the couple visited was in South Kona.

Dr. Park stressed that residents should not focus too much on South Kona as a problem area, because they are dealing with a possible cross-island situation. Additional hotspots may be identified.

Dr. Park says the health department plans to create a specific page on the DOH website to serve as a repository for the latest information, including updated numbers of confirmed cases. Park says they do not expect to maintain a “probable case” count from this point forward, because diagnoses and conformation should be faster now that the island is on the look-out for dengue fever.

The health department shared this info recently: