Many more areas, including a number of countries in south and central America and the Caribbean, are categorised as being high risk, where the advice is for pregnant women to postpone non-essential travel, rather than just considering postponing.
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“While no mosquitoes have tested positive for the Zika virus”, Florida Governor Rick Scott said, health department is aggressively testing people in this area to ensure there are no other cases.
A zone of about one square mile in Miami-Dade County is considered at risk of active transmission.
Chattanooga health officials say they need more blood donors because the Zika virus is forcing authorities in certain parts of the U.S.to halt blood donations in those areas.
Zika virus spreads to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus), but can also be spread during sex by a person infected with Zika to their partner. In Brazil, where the virus has flourished, over 1,700 babies with microcephaly have been born to mothers infected with Zika. An infected mosquito can then spread the virus to other people.
The White House said the cases should be a “wake-up call”.
Florida has detected its first cases of locally transmitted Zika, which could pose a threat to the state’s sensitive – and important – tourist industry. What is important here is that there is lack of timely and appropriate public health advice given to pregnant women in at-risk areas, which now in the US is South Florida.
There is evidence that the virus can be passed through sexual transmission from men to women and men to men.
Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) update their travel advice for citizens traveling to the United States today.
Florida Surgeon General Celeste Philip said that health officials are not advising pregnant women in the transmission area to move.
According to published media reports, officials with the Alabama Department of Public Health confirmed late Friday that a case of Zika had been confirmed in Cullman County. Dr Marc Fischer, a CDC epidemiologist, has gone to Florida at the state’s request.
“This morning we learned that four people in our state likely have the Zika virus as a result of a mosquito bite”.
Knowing that the virus is being spread by the insects here in the US has some Tri-State parents concerned.
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U.S. health officials have cautioned for months that the summer mosquito season was likely to bring local outbreaks, with Gulf Coast states such as Florida, Texas and Louisiana, on the frontlines.
