The state reported 11 new travel-related cases Thursday, with three in Miami-Dade County, two in Alachua County, two in Orange County, and one each in Duval, Monroe, Osceola and Polk counties. At Scott’s direction, all Florida health departments offer pregnant women free Zika tests, but Tamayo complained that Scott had focused the state’s efforts on mosquito control, rather than addressing sexual transmission and preventing its spread.
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As for the new case in Palm Beach County, Scott said he believed it was not related to an earlier non-travel related case announced earlier in the same county.
Florida officials announced Tuesday that a case of locally-acquired Zika infection has been confirmed in the Tampa Bay Area, as medical officials document 42 such cases in the Miami-Dade area, almost 300 miles away.
If a woman is pregnant, condoms should be used during all sexual contact and for the duration of the pregnancy if their partner recently traveled to an area with local Zika transmission. However, Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause a serious birth defect called microcephaly and other severe brain defects.
“CDC has and will continue to provide the support to Florida to address the Zika outbreak. But if we do find out (there’s more), what we will do is we will be very aggressive”.
A local woman has sound the alarm that Zika is in Palm Beach County and she’s proof.
The unidentified woman is the first in the county to contract the virus, which occurs primarily through infected Aedes mosquitoes, specifically the yellow fever and Asian tiger mosquitoes, both of which now aren’t found in the county, according to Public Health officials. Additionally, in the last few weeks, there have been 42 cases of the virus contracted in Florida.
Scott also said the state had asked the CDC for 10,000 Zika prevention kits for pregnant women, which had not been provided.
The World Health Organization has more about Zika virus.
Scott made the announcement during a round table in Tampa about the Zika virus. Many people who have Zika will not experience symptoms.
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“The big takeaway is that we are not going to have massive epidemic in Florida”, said Longini.
