Organizers for Art Basel Miami Beach and other upcoming events cautiously expressed confidence in the region’s mosquito control efforts.
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Confirmation that the Zika virus has infected several people in Miami Beach has led USA authorities to warn pregnant women not to travel to the Florida resort’s affected areas.
On Aug. 1, the CDC advised pregnant women not to travel to a 1-square mile area in Wynwood. Health officials have said one case of Zika does not determine whether an area is declared a site of active transmission.
Zika – often spread by mosquitoes – can cause severe birth defects.
The Zika virus is believed to directly cause microcephaly birth defects in pregnant women.
Officials continue to struggle with controlling mosquitos in the Wynwood area of Miami, Frieden said.
Susan Hassig, a clinical associate professor of epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, said travelers need to be more aware that they could spread Zika and take precautions.
“These are individual instances, and do not represent spread throughout the area”, Frieden said.
This brings the total number of Zika cases originating in Florida up to 36.
In a press conference later on Friday, however, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine expressed frustration with Scott and the state’s health department for keeping him and other elected officials in the dark about the island-city’s five locally transmitted Zika cases. “That’s what we would anticipate seeing here”.
The top Democrat in the Senate says Congress must return from its weekslong summer break to deal with the Zika virus, an unlikely scenario in light of the dysfunction that prevented lawmakers from agreeing on money to fight the mosquito-borne disease.
Dr. Federico Laham, the medical director of infectious disease at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando stressed that it’s also important for doctors to ask pregnant patients about their travel histories, regardless of whether or not the Aedes aegypti mosquito is present in their areas of practice.
Health officials are especially concerned about pregnant women.
Hundreds of flights through our three worldwide airports daily connect tens of thousands of passengers with Zika hot zones in Caribbean, and South America and Central America.
We reached out to the Department of Agriculture to find out why the area is protected but have not heard back.
CDC director Tom Frieden is concerned that the battle to stop the spread of Zika might be hard in such a high-profile area that receives an abundance of tourists.
A public health emergency was declared in the US territory on August 12 after more than 10,000 laboratory-confirmed cases were recorded, including more than a thousand pregnant women.
Most of the thousands of Zika infections recorded globally have so far occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean. Several countries have reported cases of microcephaly and Guillian-Barré Syndrome.
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In Miami Beach, the Zika transmission zone is a small area that stretches from 8th Street to 28th street, and runs the length of the city from the beach to Biscayne Bay.
