On Monday, after 14 cases of local Zika transmission were confirmed in a Miami neighborhood, federal health officials issued a travel advisory for that area for people how traveled to or lived there on or after June 15, 2016.
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U.S. media said this could be the first time the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised the public not to travel a place in the continental United States.
Frieden says the CDC limited its advisory to the small area where cases were found because the mosquito that spreads Zika – Aedes aegypti – can’t fly very far.
In addition to the travel warning aimed at pregnant women, the CDC said pregnant women in the Miami area should make every effort to avoid mosquito bites.
The agency said on Monday that it is also recommending that pregnant couples in the area avoid mosquito bites with clothing and repellant. He says he asked the CDC to send an emergency response team to help the Florida Health Department deal with the problem.
The facts are that the Zika virus has infected at least 14 people in the one-mile area including Wynwood, north of downtown Miami. Some countries, including the United Kingdom, have already issued a travel warning for their pregnant citizens about traveling to the affected area in Florida. “DOH believes local transmissions are still only occurring in the same square mile area of Miami”.
Late last week, Florida state health officials confirmed that four people had obtained Zika from mosquitoes in the same 150-square-meter area.
The tropical mosquito that spreads Zika travels less than 200 yards in its lifetime. It has been found to cause birth defects including microcephaly and other serious brain anomalies, according to the journal. Almost two dozen include pregnant women.
“Zika is now here”, said Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at Friday’s news briefing. The virus generally causes mild symptoms in adults, but can cause severe birth defects in the children of pregnant women who become infected with the virus.
The El Paso County Health Department reminds us that the type of mosquito that carries Zika can not live in Colorado.
Workers started spraying neighborhoods Monday.
The Florida Department of Health said six of the 10 new cases are asymptomatic and were identified through the door-to-door community survey and testing that it is conducting.
As Joan Murray of WFOR-TV, CBS4 in Miami reported, Miami-Dade Mosquito Control was blasting block after block with mosquito killing chemicals Monday to control the spread of Zika.
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USA health officials had warned that there would be local transmission of the virus from mosquitoes but say they don’t expect it to be widespread, as has been seen in Puerto Rico and throughout the Americas.
