Florida will provide free Zika testing for pregnant women at county health departments across the state, and health officials have recommended that any expecting mothers who visited the Wynwood area since mid-June should be tested.
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Yuma County Public Health Services District confirmed Thursday the first case of Zika virus in a Yuma County resident. Instead, the CDC has been coordinating with state officials long distance. Florida officials have yet to say why their federal counterparts have not been invited to study the virus and its effects while “on the ground”.
All of the cases are people who contracted the virus after traveling to Zika-affected areas, which include the Caribbean, South America and a neighborhood in Miami, Florida.
State officials are also monitoring 393 cases linked to travel overseas, which include 55 cases involving pregnant women.
However, Miami is 236 miles from Orlando, where the resorts are, and no cases of the virus have emerged there. A woman infected with Zika can pass the disease to her fetus, stunting brain development and causing other severe defects.
The Pentagon said that all the exposures happened outside the USA, but some of those who have had it or may now have it may be in the United States, as there is no quarantine for Zika.
Because of environmental regulations governing which chemicals can be used as insecticides, mosquito control authorities cannot easily switch to another compound if bugs prove resistant to it.
Military personnel are advised to follow the same rules as civilians to protect themselves in mosquito-infested areas, such as wearing appropriate clothing and using insect repellant.
Aedes mosquitoes feed primarily on human blood, and tend to breed in small pools of water found in local neighborhoods. Puerto Rico recently announced it would use the larvicide Bti to fight Zika, with almost 6,000 cases reported in that USA territory.
“The Aedes aegypti mosquito does not travel more than 150 meters in its lifetime, and often quite a bit less than that”, Frieden said.
“Amidst growing concerns about Zika and sexual transmission, the Department of Health is urging pregnant women to be tested for the Zika virus in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy, even if they have no symptoms”, said Health Commissioner Michelle Davis. The CDC has reported 14 cases of sexually transmitted infections. These infections are thought to have occurred because the patients’ partners had traveled to countries where Zika is circulating, the CDC said.
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This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.
