“The funding, distributed through CDC’s Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement (ELC), will support activities to protect the health of the American public, especially pregnant women”, the release said.
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Zika is a concern because if a pregnant woman is infected, she faces a higher risk of bearing a child with microcephaly, in which the skull and brain are malformed and smaller than normal.
Officials are investigating whether the Zika infection of a woman in the Miami area could be the first transmission of the virus from a mosquito bite in the continental United States.
Understanding modes of transmission is becoming more urgent to Florida residents as the first suspected cases of local transmission have emerged – on Tuesday health officials announced they were investigating a possible case in Miami-Dade County, and on Thursday, a possible case in Broward County. “This is the most severe form of the birth defect associated with Zika”.
The Ministry of Health is investing in testing genetically modified mosquitoes as a Zika-control strategy – but the species modified is Aedes aegypti. Nearly all were people who had traveled to Zika outbreak countries and caught the virus, though a handful were people who had not traveled to Zika zones but had sex with someone who had. Earlier this week, a potential case was detected in Miami-Dade, state officials said.
States such as Maryland, which has recorded 42 cases of Zika, already have stepped up efforts to monitor for the virus.
More than 1,300 Zika infections have been reported in the USA, none involving bites from local mosquitoes; 14 of these were sexually transmitted, and one lab worker was infected by a needle stick.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Florida had confirmed a Zika infection, and that the CDC is “closely coordinating with Florida officials”, according to a statement sent to AFP.
That includes surveying households and neighbors within a 150-yard radius around the residence of the person who has Zika. Both areas in the past had outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases, like dengue and chikungunya, which are transmitted by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries Zika virus, and receive thousands of people traveling from places where Zika is spreading.
Lakeland Regional Health, Bartow Regional Medical Center and Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center in Haines City rely on OneBlood for their donor blood supply, said Pat Michaels of OneBlood.
He said another field experiment is scheduled in a week in New Orleans and they hope to get funding to test their specialized trap in Honduras.
But Zika can cause serious birth defects if a woman becomes infected while pregnant. However, the infection can spread through sex. The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting several days to a week, though there can be profound impact to a developing fetus should the mother contract the virus.
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“It could be that mosquitoes circulating in the Northeast [of Brazil] have more interaction”, he said, stressing that more research was needed.
