'She met the wrong mosquito': Florida woman, 80, becomes first Floridian to die of dengue fever in nearly a century

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Gay Small died on her 80th birthday, September 4, at Tampa General Hospital after being bitten by a mosquito close to her Bayshore Boulevard home in Tampa, making her Florida's first recorded locally acquired dengue fatality in almost 100 years. Her daughter Anna Small described her mother as fit, active and health-conscious, which made the death all the more devastating. Health officials confirmed on Friday that dengue infection, compounded by septic shock and multi-organ failure, was the cause of death.

Doctors believe an earlier, undetected dengue infection picked up during Gay's wide-ranging international travels may have left her vulnerable, with the second exposure triggering a severe immune overreaction that proved fatal.

Florida is in the grip of one of its worst-ever outbreaks, with 332 cases recorded statewide this year — 134 of them clustered in Hillsborough County alone.

In a cruel irony, Gay's late husband Bob Small devoted his career to developing a dengue vaccine — yet the disease that killed his wife still has no fully effective one.