Florida Governor Rick Scott said Tuesday that a locally transmitted case of the Zika virus has been confirmed in Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater. The virus, which can cause severe fetal birth defects and other neural disorders, is spreading in a 20-block area of Miami Beach and another section of Miami known as Wynwood. Officials are working with Pinellas County Mosquito Control to provide “aggressive spraying and mosquito abatement efforts”, Scott said. Four more locally transmitted Zika cases were also reported in Wynwood, an area in north Miami where the first continental U.S. Zika outbreak occurred. Tuesday’s new cases in Wynwood came despite Scott saying that state officials were able to “clear almost the entire perimeter of the area” where local transmissions likely occurred. Scott added that pregnant women seeking a free Zika test or a Zika prevention kit should contact the state’s department of health. Florida is the first US state to experience local transmission of Zika.
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Occasional individual cases of local transmission cropped up during earlier chikungunya and dengue outbreaks in Florida, but in most instances these did not amount to a new outbreak, Frieden explained.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday that he believes Texas and Louisiana could be hit with local transmissions of Zika next and that the virus could be in United States for one to two years.
For months, experts have not been shy about calling this a public-health emergency, which should be a clarion call to change behavior. For Congress, it should mean providing the resources to combat the virus. The number of Zika cases there now total 10,690, with 1,035 of those being pregnant women.
US officials said they don’t expect to see a Zika epidemic in the United States similar to those in Latin America.
In addition to mosquitoes, the Zika virus can be transmitted through sex.
“While this investigation is ongoing, DOH still believes that ongoing active transmissions are only occurring in the two previously identified areas in Wynwood and Miami Beach”, Scott said in a statement.
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This Q & A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.
