Raul Pino on Friday advised CT women who are or plan to become pregnant and their partners to heed the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention travel warnings to avoid Miami Beach, Fla., and postpone travel to Miami-Dade County if possible.
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Governor Rick Scott said there were five cases of Zika transmitted by mosquitoes in Miami Beach.
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine told a press conference late on Thursday that state and federal health officials have yet to conclude the tourist hotspot is the latest area where Zika has been transmitted.
Pregnant women were specifically advised to avoid travel to the area of Miami Beach between 8th and 28th Streets from Biscayne Bay to the Atlantic Ocean – in addition to a previously identified one-square-mile zone in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood.
The number of Zika virus cases among military personnel has continued to rise, with 14 more cases reported in recent weeks to increase the total number from 41 to 55, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday.
“Unfortunately a risk everybody’s going to have to take when they step outside the door”, she said.
Three of those individuals were visitors to the area when they contracted the virus.
All of the cases among military personnel and dependents were “travel related”, meaning that the virus was not contracted within the continental USA since testing began earlier this year, the spokesman said.
As of Thursday, the Florida Department of Health reported 479 travel-related cases of Zika and 35 locally acquired cases. A resident of that state who visited Miami recently has tested positive for the virus, state health officials said in a statement. “Pregnant women who have traveled to an area with Zika should inform their doctor upon return, and couples returning from an affected area should speak with a doctor before getting pregnant”. That neighbourhood was the first site on the USA mainland where health officials determined mosquitoes were transmitting Zika.
CDC officials expect more cases to pop up soon.
Zika, which has extended through a large part of Latin America and the Caribbean, can cause pregnant women to have babies with microcephalic deformity and neurological problems.
Three vacuum trucks purchased to help Miami Beach fight rising sea levels have been used since the beginning of the year to drain water in low-lying areas where mosquitoes could breed, said Roy Coley, the city’s infrastructure director.
“The key here is pregnant women”.
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Florida is the first state to experience an outbreak of the Zika virus through mosquito bites. According to the CDC, there 2,260 cases of the virus in the continental United States.
