Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said he’s confident in local mosquito control because they’ve successfully fought off outbreaks of West Nile, dengue fever and chikungunya.
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“They’re just asking us, making sure we answer questions they are asking about the Zika, I guess the symptoms and stuff like that”.
Over at the Blood Center, they are getting prepared in case there are any Zika cases transmitted by local mosquitoes. Unless infected mosquitoes are discovered in traps – which is unlikely – investigators determine a case to be transmitted by mosquito by eliminating other sources of infection, like sexual contact with an infected person or travel-related infections that occurred while visiting locales where Zika infections are already occurring.
“If you’re coming to Florida as a tourist, if you’re coming to the theme parks, then you’re coming to some of the safest places in the world because they have mosquito control down like no place else”, said Jacobs. “It’s a national issue – we just happen to be at the forefront”.
It’s the only part of the state now being tested for potential local transmissions of Zika, Scott said.
The area of transmission has actually been narrowed down to a single zip code north of downtown Miami.
“There are a series of factors we’ll have to look at”. There’s been 14 cases of Zika identified but they’re travel-related. But it wasn’t until May of this year that researchers found a mosquito in the wild that was carrying Zika.
Though the virus is relatively mild in most cases, many pregnant women who are infected with Zika give birth to babies with a congenital defect called microcephaly, which causes an abnormally small head.
This week, a pharmaceutical company administered its first dose of an experimental Zika vaccine to a volunteer, CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reports.
Findley said the Springfield-Greene County Health Department has been watching for cases of the Zika virus transmitted by mosquitos in Texas and Florida.
No misquitos in CT have tested positive for the Zika virus, however, one of the two types of mosquitoes that can carry the disease have been found along the CT shoreline. Wear long trousers, long sleeves, wear socks, put trousers in your socks.
One woman and three men infected with the virus all appear to have acquired it from a single small neighborhood in Miami, but health authorities are not advising people to avoid the neighborhood.
The FDA also has recommended that neighboring counties implement the same precautions, and visitors to South Florida in the last month are urged to defer donations as well.
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“Zika is now here”, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday in marking the moment when the virus went from being a concern only of travelers in Latin America and the Caribbean to something that can strike people enjoying their own backyards or a dinner on a restaurant patio.
