We learned today that four people in our state likely have the Zika virus as a result of mosquito bite, Governor Rick Scott said Friday morning.
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Microcephaly is a neurological condition where babies are born with small heads and sometimes-small brains. The current outbreak was first detected in Brazil past year and has since spread rapidly through the Americas.
“We have lots of mosquitos but we don’t have the species that are capable of spreading Zika virus in B.C”. “At CDC, we have been saying for months, based on experience with chikungunya and dengue – viruses spread by the same mosquito that spreads Zika – that individual cases and potentially small clusters of Zika are possible in the U.S.”, CDC Director Tom Frieden said during a Friday media briefing.
Experts say they expect to see more “home grown” cases.
Following the news, the United Kingdom issued a travel warning, urging pregnant citizens to postpone their travel to Florida.
The governor of Florida said four individuals in the southern part of the state were likely to have contracted the virus through bites from local mosquitoes than that were rather travel overseas.
A total of 53 people have been treated in the United Kingdom for the infection.
It is strengthening mosquito-control programmes and is distributing Zika protection kits to pregnant women at their doctors’ offices, Florida officials said.
“Puerto Rico is in the midst of a Zika epidemic”.
He added there may be additional cases in the area that haven’t been reported, because most people infected with the virus don’t experience any symptoms.
No mosquitoes in Florida have actually been found to be carrying Zika, despite the testing of 19,000 by the state lab But other methods of Zika transmission, such as travel to a stricken country or sex with an infected person, have been ruled out. The virus is spread through mosquito bites.
“Congress has been sitting on a $1.9 billion proposal that would more fully fund federal response to this public health emergency”, White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said, as reported by Politico. Keep in mind to use an insect repellent registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), wear long-sleeved shirts and long trousers, use or fix screens on windows and doors, use air conditioning when available, and remove standing water where mosquitoes can lay eggs.
The CDC and Florida officials said that for now, the area of concern is limited to a square mile in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, just north of downtown. A small proportion of Zika infections may also trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome, an illness that targets the nervous system, scientists say.
Jenny Gray, who is 27 and works in Wynwood for an art designer, said she will follow experts’ advice to wear insect repellent. “They’re spraying by both truck and backpack, both for adult mosquitoes and larval mosquitoes”. And because Zika infection often does not produce any symptoms, “there may be more cases than we know of now”.
No Zika-infected mosquitoes have been found in the area.
“This is not just a Florida issue”.
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Dr. Wen said there’s several steps everyone can take to prevent the spread of Zika.
