Since early February, when the state health department began reporting Zika infections, Orange County has documented 33 travel-related cases.
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“However, there’s a lot we don’t know about Zika virus, and we are still doing a lot of investigation into whether Zika can be spread from person to person through contact with a sick person”, said Pillai.
Health officials said Zika contributed to the man’s death, but that he also had an underlying medical condition and was elderly.
The most likely route for local transmission is that someone who is infected while traveling returns home and is bitten by a local mosquito.
Zika is spread mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito.
Zika virus cases in the USA have been linked to foreign travel.
The current Zika outbreak was first detected in Brazil past year and has spread through the Americas by mosquito, but has yet to reach the continental United States in that manner.
More than 300 people in Florida, including 43 pregnant women, have reported cases of Zika, which can cause birth defects.
It has now sent an emergency response team to Utah because the carer did not have any of the usual risk factors for Zika and had not travelled to a known infected area.
Pierce County man in his 20s tested positive for the Zika virus. On Monday, state and federal health authorities acknowledged that the family member had contracted the virus, also, but they were not sure how it happened. According to the CDC, symptoms of Zika are usually mild and include fever, rash, conjunctivitis (red eyes), and joint-pain, lasting several days to a week.
“This third case shows on ongoing risk when traveling overseas”, Dr. Matt Richardson, the county’s Director of Public Health, said in a statement.
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The investigation will center on how the individual, the eighth person in Utah to be diagnosed with the virus, became infected after having contact with the deceased patient who had a “uniquely high amount of virus in the blood”. Researchers have concluded that prenatal Zika infection can cause microcephaly and other brain disorders. A man can pass Zika virus to his partner(s) even if he does not have symptoms at the time, or if his symptoms have gone away.
