The person recently returned to the US from an area overseas where Zika is prevalent, reported the Knox County Health Department, which received lab confirmation of the case from the state Department of Health on Friday.
Advertisement
In the event of a locally transmitted Zika outbreak, the CDC will advise community health departments to intensify surveillance and mosquito control and reach out to residents to prevent further infections.
More research is needed to see how this will impact the spread of Zika, but some Fort Myers mothers said the chance of more insects having the virus makes it even scarier. These mosquitoes typically live near people and can breed in as little as a teaspoonful of stagnant water.
Two of the Utah women are still pregnant, including a case confirmed earlier this month by Utah County of a woman who caught the virus in an unnamed country in a Zika-affected part of the world and then moved to Utah County. Health officials say the infant’s mother never described symptoms of illness. 2,000 pregnant women are being tested for Zika; 41 pregnant women in New York City have tested positive for the virus.
To date, there are 353 cases of Zika virus in the state of Florida, including 47 pregnant women.
Before this study was completed by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Zika was thought to be carried exclusively by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
On Tuesday, Florida said it was investigating a possible Zika case in a Miami-Dade County woman. “We treat a potential case just like a confirmed case”.
Florida’s Department of Health is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to rule out other ways the two individuals could have contracted Zika, such as through travel or sexual transmission. Their habitat includes Latin America, the Caribbean, and many southern and eastern states.
Florida, with its heavy volume of travelers to and from countries where Zika is circulating, has had the most cases.
Brazil’s Ministry of Health had reported that 1,709 cases of Zika were detected with 102 deaths and stillbirths caused by the virus.
Advertisement
The problems caused by microcephaly often last for the whole of the babies’ lives and in the most severe cases, microcephaly can be life threatening.
