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Hispaniola, an island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is the only Caribbean island on which malaria is endemic. Although Puerto Rico harbors a mosquito (Anopheles albimanus) that is capable of transmitting malaria, transmission has not occurred there since the 1950s.
On July 16, 2015, a case of malaria was diagnosed in a student who had just returned from a school trip to the Dominican Republic. During June through August 2015, a total of eight malaria cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) among travelers returning to Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic. These reports triggered an investigation among all 90 students who had participated in the school trip plus an additional 44 students wh…