Swatting skeeters may be especially important in the Sunshine State this summer.

A dozen cases of dengue, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, have been confirmed in the Key West, Florida area by the Centers for Disease Control and the Florida Department of Health. Dengue causes nearly 100 million infections and kills 25,000 people annually, according to CNN.

Some 5 percent of Key West residents (about 1,000 people) were exposed to dengue last year, according to the report, which was released on Tuesday. The last dengue outbreak in the Sunshine State was back in 1934.

None of the people who came down with dengue in this recent outbreak had traveled outside of Florida, according to a CDC press release. “So we need to determine if these cases are an isolated occurrence or if dengue has once again become endemic in the continental Unites States,” said the CDC’s chief of the dengue branch, Harold Margolis. “We are concerned that if dengue gains a foothold in Key West, it will travel to other southern cities….like Miami.”

Typically found in tropical and sub-tropical climates around the world, it usually is confined to urban and semi-urban areas, reports the World Health Organization. Although there is no vaccine against dengue, early detection and treatment reduces the risk of serious illness. While locally acquired dengue outbreaks in this country are uncommon, there have been several confirmed cases along the Texas-Mexico border recently.

A single mosquito bite can result in a case of dengue, according to the CDC, and the bite risk is highest in the early morning, several hours past daybreak, and in the late afternoon. That’s when the female mosquito typically feeds – or bites. Symptoms of dengue include high fever, severe headache and joint pain.

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American researchers are one step closer to developing a vaccine against the deadly AIDS virus.

Government scientists discovered three potent antibodies – including one that neutralizes more than 91% of HIV strains – in cells of a 60-year-old African American gay man dubbed Donor 45, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The man's body made the antibodies naturally.

Researchers are now hoping to create a vaccine that would allow anyone's body to make those antibodies. The research could pave the way to create vaccines that would be effective not just against the AIDS virus but other viral illnesses as well.

Coming up with a vaccine "will require work," Gary Nabel, who directs the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Wall Street Journal.

Added Nabel, who was a leader of the research, "We're going to be at this for awhile," before any benefits are apparent. Vaccines, thought to work by turning on the body's own ability to make antibodies, have been an important part of AIDS research.

Last year, the first HIV vaccine to show any effectiveness proved to be a disappointment. Success rates on that vaccine, following a trial in Thailand, ranged from statistically insignificant to 30%. But the discovery of these new antibodies may yield a more promising treatment.

"The antibodies attach to a virtually unchanging part of the virus, and this explains why they can neutralize such an extraordinary range of HIV strains," Dr. John Mascola, a study researcher, said in a statement, according to AOL News.

Turning the discovery of the antibodies into an effective HIV vaccine would be difficult, since researchers would have to zero in on a crucial part of the virus that the antibodies fasten onto, and then design a vaccine using that viral part to prod the body to make the antibodies found in Donor 45.

The new discovery, described in the online edition of the journal Science, comes just days before a large International AIDS Conference in Vienna.

Prevention science is expected to be the focus at the meeting. More than 33 million people had HIV at the end of 2008, according to United Nations estimates reported in the Wall Street Journal, and some 2.7 came down with the virus that same year.

In the case of Donor 45, whose antibodies did not save him from getting HIV, researchers screened some 25 million of his cells to find the dozen that produced the powerful antibodies. He most likely already had contracted the virus before his body started to produce antibodies.

The man is still alive, and had been living with HIV for two decades at the time his blood was drawn.

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An outbreak of E. coli poisoning has expanded to Tennessee, where one more person has been sickened after eating romaine lettuce grown on an Arizona farm.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are 23 confirmed cases of E. coli and seven probable cases connected to the tainted lettuce. That is up from 19 confirmed by CDC earlier this week.

The rest of those sickened live in Michigan, Ohio and New York. Many of them were middle school, high school and college students who ate in school cafeterias. The CDC said there are 10 confirmed cases in Michigan, eight confirmed cases in Ohio, four confirmed cases in New York and one confirmed case in Tennessee. All of those sickened became ill before late April.

The strain of E. coli involved in the outbreak is rare and difficult to diagnose, so there may be more unreported cases, officials have said.

There have been two recalls of romaine lettuce related to the outbreak, both by distributors who bought lettuce from the same Yuma, Ariz., farm. Ohio-based Freshway Foods announced a 23-state recall of romaine lettuce last week, while Vaughn Foods of Moore, Okla., announced a recall Monday.

Vaughn Foods bought its lettuce from California-based Andrew Smith Co., a supply company which shipped the lettuce after purchasing it from the Arizona farm. The Food and Drug Administration, which is investigating the outbreak, has so far declined to give the name of the farm.

Andrew Smith Co. would not say if they supplied romaine lettuce to Freshway Foods. Amy Philpott, a spokeswoman for Andrew Smith Co., said the company did sell the lettuce to an additional distributor in Massachusetts but would not identify that distributor because the lettuce is already past its expiration date.

The FDA said it is still attempting to determine the point in the supply chain where the contamination occurred, since it went through several facilities before it was eaten. As a supplier, Andrew Smith Co. buys bulk romaine lettuce from farms and sells it to distributors. Those distributors, such as Freshway Foods and Vaughn Foods, then sell it to food service outlets or retail customers.

Many of those who became ill were college students in the three states. Middle and high school students in New York were also sickened, including a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can cause bleeding in the brain or kidneys. Local health authorities in Dutchess County, N.Y., where the students fell ill, said they are all expected to make a full recovery.

The E. coli was discovered by New York health authorities in a bag of Freshway Foods shredded romaine lettuce last week after they had been investigating the outbreak in the schools for several weeks.

Most of the lettuce recalled was sold to food service establishments. The recall does not affect bagged lettuce in the grocery store.

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