State health officials are investigating the first potential, non-travel related case of the virus. Zika is commonly transmitted through a mosquito bite and also can be sexually transmitted.
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In all, the state has had 326 cases of travel-related Zika, 43 of which have been in pregnant women. But all have been due to the infected person traveling to Zika-prone countries in the Caribbean and South America.
Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly and other neurological deficits in babies born to mothers who were infected while pregnant.
“Zika prevention kits and repellant will be available for pickup … and distributed in the area under investigation”, the health department said in a statement.
A young woman from Snohomish County has tested positive for the Zika virus, according to results released to the Snohomish Health District.
So far, there is no confirmed case of local mosquito transmission of the virus; Florida’s would be the first. World Health Organization experts, who have described the virus as “spreading explosively”, say there could be as many as three to four million zika infections in the next year.
The “CDC has been working with state, local, and territorial health officials to prepare for the possibility of locally acquired Zika infection in the United States”, the agency said.
The virus is also linked to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rare condition in which the immune system attacks nerves. But all of the patients diagnosed have been infected while traveling overseas, in areas where Zika is more prevalent. Among them, 346 are or have been pregnant women.
Health officials ask that all Florida residents drain standing water and cover skin with clothing or repellent whenever outside. Though the virus can live in urine, blood and saliva – in addition to semen and vaginal fluid – there were previously no cases of it being spread in those ways.
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“It was only a matter of time before the right circumstances aligned in Florida”, said Dr. Amesha Adalja of the University of Pittsbuch Medical Center’s Center for Health Security.
