Doctor William Araya shows a jar with larvas of the mosquito Aedes Aegypti, that transmit the Zika virus, the Dengue and the Chikunguna, at a laboratory in San Jose, Costa Rica, January 27, 2016.
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“The implications for viral control are clear”, said study co-author Dr. Robert Tesh, of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “It makes control harder”. Unlike West Nile virus spraying events, which have trucks fogging the neighborhood from the street, Zika spraying requires an up-close approach.
Tesh said the next step is to show that mosquitoes are actually passing Zika to their offspring in the wild.
For more about the Zika virus, head to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Zika virus has been found to cause brain damage-called microcephaly – in newborns whose mothers were infected during pregnancy. The World Health Organization has declared Zika’s spread an worldwide health emergency, and WHO and the USA government have urged pregnant women and their partners not to travel to 45 countries-most of them in the Caribbean and Latin America-where Zika virus is now active. In the United States, it is especially abundant in Florida, the Gulf Coast, Arizona and California, with sporadic records in other Southern, Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states.
No mosquitos have been found carrying the virus in NY, but almost 500 people in the city have contracted the illness after they or someone they had sexual contact with traveled to an area where Zika is prevalent, according to the Health Department. Eggs can be destroyed to stop them from hatching Zika-infected larvae-for instance, by adding certain bacteria to the standing water where they were laid-but it’s hard. If this also happens in nature, the virus might be able to survive in tough mosquito eggs even when cold weather, dry spells, and pesticides kill off the infectious adults.
They found the virus present in one out of every 290 mosquitoes tested.
There was some good news in the study: Aedes albopictus, the so-called Asian tiger mosquito that has a much broader ranges than Aedes aegypti, did not transmit Zika to its eggs. West Nile and St. Louis encephalitis viruses can also be passed on in eggs of Culex mosquitoes.
Usually, it takes people plus mosquitoes to spread a virus.
Pregnant women and their partners are urged not to travel to some four dozen countries – a lot of them in the Caribbean and Latin America – where Zika virus is now active. “Finding infected larvae in an abandoned tire or water container would be evidence of vertical transmission”.
“Since Zika virus has emerged as a global health emergency, most research has focused on the virus and its effects on humans”.
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Workers will also be inspecting properties for mosquito breeding sites and spray backyards if necessary.
