All four cases are in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, which are adjacent.
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The FDA’s actions follow four suspected cases – two each in Miami-Dade and Broward – of locally transmitted Zika were discovered.
A CDC spokesman said on Wednesday that “evidence is mounting to suggest local transmission via mosquitoes” in South Florida, noting that the cases fit transmission patterns seen with prior mosquito-borne outbreaks such as Chikungunya. Health experts say it can spread through sexual contact or infected mosquitoes.
Two new travel-related cases of the Zika virus were reported in Brevard County on Wednesday, according to the Florida Department of Health.
The department urged residents and visitors to participate if asked for urine samples in the areas being investigated.
For months, models have predicted Florida and Texas as the most at-risk locations for local Zika outbreaks, a point echoed by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To date, more than 1,300 cases of the Zika virus have been reported in the US, with the majority of the cases being directly attributed to travel outside the continental United States.
There has been no confirmation whether those cases were actually the first cases of the virus transmitted by mosquitoes in the United States. They can resume collections once the blood centers put in place testing for each unit of blood collected. The person is a woman in her 30s from Lancaster County who recently traveled to a Zika-affected country. The CDC has confirmed that the Zika virus is responsible for causing severe defects in unborn children, including microcephaly, which leaves babies with abnormally small heads and often with brains that do not develop properly.
Many people infected with Zika virus won’t have symptoms or will only have mild symptoms.
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Zika is known to cause bad birth defects. More than 430 pregnant women in the continental USA have been diagnosed with Zika, along with 422 in the territories.
