Hellerstedt said he doesn’t anticipate that the U.S. will experience the sort of widespread Zika outbreaks seen in Brazil and other Latin American countries, because of Americans’ heavy use of window and doors screens and air conditioning, which help prevent exposure to mosquitoes.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 19 countries that now do not have Zika have the right conditions for outbreaks if it is imported by people returning from the Olympics.
That would prevent further transmission of the Zika virus for at least a decade, with only smaller, intermittent outbreaks, they said. For most people the health risks are mild.
Some women who were infected during pregnancy have miscarried or given birth to babies with abnormally small heads and other serious birth defects.
The current Zika virus epidemic is likely to “burn itself out” within two or three years, scientists have suggested.
The virus has been circulating through Latin America and the Caribbean since the current outbreak began in Brazil in May 2015.
The virus is unable to infect the same person twice, and so there comes a point when there are fewer and fewer people prone to infection.
Texas health officials reported the first Zika-related microcephaly case in the state.
The scientists at Imperial College used existing data for zika transmission across Latin America as well as data on similar viruses such as dengue, and built a mathematical model to characterize the current epidemic and future transmission. “This means by the time we have vaccines ready to be tested, there may not be enough cases of Zika in the community to test if the vaccine works”.
A 15th Dallas County resident has tested positive for the Zika virus, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services.
“The rise of Zika after its long persistence as a disease of apparently little importance highlights how little we truly understand about the global spread of mosquito-borne viruses and other lesser-known diseases”, said the study’s co-leader, Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology.
“Over the past decades, dengue, chikungunya, West Nile virus and now Zika have emerged or re-emerged across the globe”.
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The mosquito species that is mainly responsible for spreading millions of cases of the virus does not thrive in the mid-Atlantic region even in summer. Health officials encourage people to avoid mosquito bites and sexual contact with someone who has the virus.
