The steps follow Florida’s announcement on Wednesday that it has identified two more Zika cases – one more in each county – that were not related to travel to an area where the virus is being transmitted.
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The U.S. has likely seen its first four cases of locally transmitted Zika virus, Florida Governor Rick Scott said Friday.
Messages left Thursday for officials at the Florida Department of Health were not immediately returned.
The U.S. FDA has temporarily suspended blood donations in two Florida counties due to fears over Zika virus. On top of that the FDA recommended that blood centers hold taking samples from people who visited Miami-Dade for at least four weeks.
He said state health officials believe the infections occurred in a small area just north of downtown Miami.
“We’re conducting this investigation as we would other mosquito-borne viruses, such as dengue (fever)”, Mara Gambineri, communications director for the Florida Department of Health, wrote in an email to CNN.
As of now, the 1,400 infections reported in the USA have been linked to travel to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with Zika outbreaks, according to the Associated Press (AP).
OneBlood, Florida’s main blood supplier, said in a statement it would work as quickly as possible to comply with the FDA’s “unanticipated” request.
For Zika to become a homegrown virus in the mainland United States, a mosquito would have to bite a Zika-infected person and then bite another person, passing on the virus.
Gov. Scott urged pregnant women or women thinking of becoming pregnant who live in the impacted area to contact their OB/GYN for guidance and to receive a Zika Prevention Kit. She contracted the virus while she was in Haiti, according to the health department.
“There are a series of factors we’ll have to look at”.
Zika is known to cause severe birth defects in pregnant women.
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OneBlood, in cooperation with the Florida Department of Health, earlier this week suspended collections in a number of areas in South Florida where the suspected non-travel-related Zika cases are being investigated.
