Governor of Florida Rick Scott reported on Friday that four persons in southern Florida likely contracted Zika through local mosquito bites, even though no insect trapped and tested in the state has proven positive for the virus so far, The Guardian reported. “This means Florida has become the first state in our nation to have local transmission”, Scott said.
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Although there have been over 1,600 cases of the virus confirmed by health officials in almost all 50 states, every patient save the four reports in Florida contracted the disease either travelling overseas or through sexual transmission.
Zika infections in pregnant women can have traumatic effects on their unborn children, causing microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The infected people had not traveled to other Zika-affected areas, and did not have sex with Zika-infected partners, which leaves mosquitoes as the likely culprits.
A small area north of downtown Miami that is about a square mile in size is believed to be the only place where the Zika virus is being transmitted from mosquitoes to people. Public Health England has updated its country-specific Zika advice page to include the U.S. state as an area of “moderate risk”.
In information posted on its website Thursday, the Florida Department of Health said it was continuing to investigate the four cases in Miami-Dade and Broward that might not be connected to travel.
The Guardian reports that 53 cases of the Zika virus have now been confirmed in the United Kingdom, all transmitted overseas before the victim returned home. “Unfortunately, they left town for seven weeks without doing anything on this”. Congress left for its seven-week summer break directly before peak mosquito season without passing a spending bill to fund a federal response to the Zika virus.
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“Congress has been sitting on a $1.9 billion proposal that would more fully fund federal response to this public health emergency”, White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said, as reported by Politico. “We find that regrettable”.
