Now, doctors say 15 cases is not a lot- especially since most people bitten by mosquitoes carrying Zika see very little effects-but doctors say it’s important that you protect yourself when you do travel.
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The state Department of Health said as of July 27, there were 16 confirmed Zika cases statewide.
The current Zika outbreak was first detected past year in Brazil, where it has been linked to more than 1,700 cases of the birth defect microcephaly, and has since spread rapidly through the Americas.
Daily aerial spraying for adult mosquitoes and larvae has been approved for the next four weeks over a 10-square-mile area around Wynwood, county officials said. The Centers for Disease Control calls this neighborhood a Zika virus “transmission zone”.
“Following today’s announcement, I have requested that the Centers for Disease Control activate their emergency response team to assist (the Department of Health) in their investigation, research and sample collection efforts”, Scott said.
The state’s first diagnosed case of the Zika virus was reported in a Missoula County woman in February.
“It’s an area that’s not all of one type or another type, and that does make mosquito control more hard because you need to tailor the mosquito-control activities to the specifics of the area to get rid of breeding sites and apply larvicide and insecticide effectively”, Frieden said.
Aedes mosquitoes feed primarily on human blood, and tend to breed in small pools of water found in local neighborhoods.
“So basically, we just started to make sure that all pregnant women – symptomatic or asymptomatic – are going to get tested for the Zika virus”, Schmuels said. Previously, the only known cases on American soil were travel-related. The CDC has reported 14 cases of sexually transmitted infections.
The fear among expectant mothers or women trying to get pregnant is the health of the baby. That assessment is based on past outbreaks of two similar mosquito-borne diseases, dengue fever and chikungunya, in the United States.
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Health officials expect that southern US states vulnerable to mosquito-borne disease will see smaller, localized Zika outbreaks, given widespread use of window screens and air conditioning, compared with Latin American countries.
