The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will award $302,000 to the state of Oklahoma to fight the Zika virus, the agency announced Thursday.
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“Residents and visitors are urged to participate in requests for blood and urine samples by the department in the areas of investigation”.
Half of the eight Zika cases in Utah have been pregnant women. More than 1,300 Zika infections have been reported in the USA, but none of the cases involved bites from local mosquitoes.
The Ministry of Health is investing in testing genetically modified mosquitoes as a Zika-control strategy – but the species modified is Aedes aegypti. ABC News reported on a weird case of the disease where the contraction appeared to occur neither by a mosquito (here or abroad) nor through sexual intercourse.
The trapped mosquitoes were sent to a lab at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers to be tested for Zika virus and results came back negative, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Health officials worldwide have advised people preparing to have children not to travel to areas where the risk of Zika is high. Mara Gambineri, a spokesperson for the Florida health department, said the agency is still investigating and had no new information to report.
Zika cases have been reported in both Clark and Washoe counties.
Two of the women are still pregnant, including a newly confirmed case out of Utah County of a woman who caught the virus in a Zika-affected part of the world.
“When and if there is a case of local transmission, we work with local health departments to identify additional cases to define the geographic scope of the outbreak”, he said.
The Florida Department of Health said that at the direction of Gov. Rick Scott, the state surgeon general had asked the CDC to send a medical epidemiologist to assist with the investigations and response. “It doesn’t mean they transmit the virus”, Hotez said. Gamnineri said Thursday, adding that more specifics on that investigation are expected on Friday. “Testing the mosquitoes is one thing”.
The more common Culex was believed to be a carrier but not able to spread the disease, until now. Someone had been caring for a Zika-infected relative when they began showing symptoms.
In addition, OneBlood will stop collecting blood in the ZIP code where the Miami-Dade individual lives if the case turns out to be locally acquired, the blood center said Thursday.
CDC officials did not immediately respond to questions about whether a CERT team has been deployed to Miami-Dade.
Florida’s mosquito control districts can respond to Zika infections for now, but doing so burns up budgets for longer-term threats. Zika infection can also be spread by infected men and women to their sex partners.
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A related mosquito, Aedes albopictus, has also been found to be capable of spreading Zika. Insect sprays or foggers should be used following label instructions and repeated as necessary, with particular attention to dark or humid locations where mosquitoes are likely to rest. “But as far as I know, they haven’t started this whole surveillance of people”. Of those, 400 have been pregnant women.
