Federal health officials are urging pregnant women to avoid travel to Miami Beach, after Florida Gov. Rick Scott confirmed on Friday that five cases of locally transmitted Zika virus have occurred there.
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Florida officials announced on Friday that they had identified South Beach as a second area of Zika transmission on the US mainland.
Scott says two of the Miami Beach cases involved Miami-Dade County residents, and three involved tourists from New York, Texas and Taiwan.
As of Friday, the Florida Department of Health counted 36 individuals in Florida who’ve become infected through local transmission and 488 individuals whose infections stemmed from traveling outside the country to an area of mosquito-borne transmission or from having sex with such a traveler.
Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader, said the transmission of Zika in Miami Beach “is the most alarming development yet in the rapidly growing threat of Zika in the United States”. Both women who gave birth tested positive for the virus.
Zika is spread by mosquitoes and sexual contact.
The Zika virus is believed to directly cause microcephaly birth defects in pregnant women.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott says officials have identified a second area of Zika transmission on the USA mainland.
Aerial spraying and door-to-door operations on the ground have cut mosquito populations in Wynwood by up to 90 percent, but Zika may be continuing as mosquitoes breed, said CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden. The other area where mosquitoes are spreading the virus is in the Miami neighborhood of Wynwood.
“Florida is following the CDC recommendation for defining a risk area”, he said. “That’s what we would anticipate seeing here”. However, the department also is investigating over six other infections outside that area.
Reporting Aug. 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors believe that a blood donor passed along the typically mosquito-borne virus in late January to two hospitalized patients who needed transfusions.
Scott said he has directed state officials to provide educational materials and offer mosquito spraying at no cost to hotels, restaurants and attractions to fight Zika.
Miami-Dade County officials have been spraying pesticide from planes flying over Miami’s Wynwood arts district since early this month, when Zika transmissions by mosquitoes were confirmed there. At least 5 people contracted the virus in Miami Beach.
Zika causes only mild symptoms for most people.
Riverside and San Bernardino counties each have seven travel-related cases, according to the state public health department. The virus only causes mild, flu-like symptoms in most people, making it hard to confirm local transmissions, the CDC said.
“We think there will be as many as 200 additional cases [of Guillain-Barre], given the overall number of infections there”, Frieden told NBC News. Brazil, especially, has reported the vast majority of cases of Zika-linked microcephaly. The reason: better insect control as well as window screens and air conditioning that should help curtail any outbreaks.
Travel-related Zika virus is a major concern.
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That information is “very important if you are trying to craft a prevention method to your community”, Laham told The Huffington Post.
