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Cover up, stay in: Singaporeans wary as Zika spreads

On August 31, her urine sample tested positive for the Zika virus.

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Singapore has a chronic problem with dengue, which is spread by the same Aedes mosquito that transmits Zika through bites.

Kansas has received almost $1.2 million in grants for Zika-related activities, including mosquito surveillance, birth defects monitoring and awareness campaigns, such as encouraging people to dump standing water where mosquitoes can breed.

“Based on current understanding of the virus, the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) does not recommend enhanced public health screening to detect Zika-infected travellers entering the country”, the department said.

The Kaiser Family Foundation survey also found 61 percent felt uneasy about traveling to Zika zones outside the USA mainland, including Puerto Rico.

The national environment agency said it would begin mosquito control operations at the cluster involving three previously reported cases. In the first half of this year, tourism arrivals topped 8 million, around 1 million more than a year earlier.

The World Health Organization has also linked Zika to Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults. They haven’t sprayed from the air yet because of tall buildings in the area.

Ben Neuman, a virology professor at the University of Reading, said that once the virus has started to spread by mosquitoes locally, and not just by travelers, it can become entrenched in animals as well as people and be extremely hard to eradicate. Checks will also be stepped up to find any pools of water which could allow mosquitoes to breed.

Since July, authorities have linked a couple dozen cases to transmission in small areas of Miami’s Wynwood district and the popular South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach.

The first Zika case has been reported in Montgomery County, according to the County Judge’s Office. “Basically, we are out of money and we need Congress to act”.

Authorities increased their trapping and mosquito-control efforts in the area.

In Washington, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell expressed frustration that Congress hasn’t acted.

United States health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

“The money that’s running out is the tide-over money we have taken from other (priorities)”, Burwell told reporters. Burwell said any Zika bill has to make special provision for Puerto Rico, which has been most severely affected.

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Populations in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria are some of the most vulnerable to the virus, the researchers said. While Florida is the only US state with locally-transmitted cases, the mosquitoes which carries Zika is found in a wide area, including eastern Kansas.

Zika is primarily transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and also by sexual contact