Florida, a popular holiday destination for Britons, reported four cases of local transmission on Friday.
Advertisement
“We continue to recommend that everyone in areas where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are present-and especially pregnant women-take steps to avoid mosquito bites”, Frieden said.
The current outbreak of the Zika virus was first detected in Brazil previous year and has since spread rapidly through the Americas.
With the confirmation of locally transmitted Zika virus transmission in the Miami, Florida area, Public Health England has raised the risk designation for the Sunshine State from low to medium.
“Pregnant women should consider postponing non-essential travel to affected areas until after the pregnancy”.
As of July 21, there were 433 cases of the virus that can cause birth defects involving pregnant women in the USA and an additional 422 cases in US territories.
Officials believe someone contracted the mosquito-borne virus while out of the country, and was then bitten by a mosquito that bit four others in Florida, spreading the virus.
Advertisement
“The critical issue is to make sure that those local cases don’t become disseminated and don’t become sustained and the way you do that is with very aggressive mosquito abatement programs”, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). There are 4,750 known cases in USA territories. “We’re just the front of it”. Fifteen of those cases were sexually transmitted by a partner who had been overseas. Although a unsafe outbreak in the middle of summer can cause worry and distress for travelers and residents of the Sunshine State, it’s comforting that health experts around the world are working tirelessly to spread awareness in hopes to prevent further cases of Zika as they continue to research more ways to halt any future outbreaks.
