To date, there are 334 cases of Zika virus in the state of Florida, including 46 pregnant women.
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Earlier this week, a case emerged in Utah in which a caregiver appeared to have been infected by an elderly patient, though the exact route of transmission remains unknown.
Officials urge pregnant women to avoid traveling to Zika-affected areas and to wear mosquito repellent to reduce the risk of being bitten.
The recommendations come as Florida officials investigate what may be the first cases of Zika in the continental United States caused by the bite of a local mosquito. Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control Operations Manager Chalmers Vasquez said inspectors are trying to get into every backyard to spray and eliminate breeding sites.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will award $1 million to the state of Tennessee to help fight Zika.
In collaboration with colleagues from Mexico, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers were the first to directly connect the Aedes aegypti mosquito with Zika transmission in the Americas, during an outbreak in southern Mexico.
The patient is a woman who lives in Miami-Dade County, according to a health official familiar with the case who wasn’t authorized to reveal details beyond the statements of the agencies involved, and thus spoke on condition of anonymity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention divided $25 million between states, cities and territories July 1, according to the release.
Health officials waited Thursday to see if mosquitoes collected near Miami test positive for the Zika virus.
“Because several experimental studies have suggested that A. aegypti is not highly susceptible to Zika virus infection and there has been a lack of direct evidence of A. aegypti infection during outbreaks, some scientists have speculated that other common tropical urban mosquitoes such as Culex quinquefasciatus could be involved”, said UTMB professor Scott Weaver, senior author of this paper.
“We are all on heightened alert”, said Sheila Phillips, administrative director of the NCH Community Blood Center in Collier County.
In the event the case is confirmed, OneBlood says they’ll cease collections in the immediate area, and bring in fresh blood to supply the region. “It’s the truck, it’s the gas, it’s the chemicals – it’s the whole shooting match”.
The CDC recommends that people, especially pregnant women or women who might become pregnant, take precautions to protect themselves from mosquito bites that could infect them with Zika. “We just have to go with a little lower inventory with some of our chemicals used for treating mosquitoes”.
According to the U.S. Zika response plan, Zika local transmission is defined as two or more cases not due to travel or sex with an infected person that occur in a one-mile diameter over the course of a month.
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The CDC this week announced almost $60 million in stopgap funding to divide between states and territories for local Zika efforts, but its officials also stressed that more money is crucial. “The CDC needs the money yesterday”.
