On the other hand, USA health officials announced on Monday the first Zika infection that was not acquired through sex or mosquito bite.
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The virus, which has circulated throughout South America, has been known to cause birth defects.
It’s news health officials have been expecting, and dreading: Reports of the first Zika cases on continental US soil that appear to have no link to travel.
Regarding the first Zika virus case reported this week, health authorities said the investigation is still ongoing.
Days after the first potential case has been reported and with a possibility of a second one, the Florida’s Department of Health is conducting door-to-door outreach with mosquito control measures to discard any possible threats in the areas surrounding the state’s residences, workplaces and frequently visited places of both suspect cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said local Zika transmission could occur if an infected traveler returned to the USA and got bitten by a mosquito here. “These results will help the department determine the number of people affected”.
“That’s scary, that’s scary, but I don’t know how much we really know about Zika virus”, said Paloma Thomas of Fort Myers.
Ettestad said the mosquitoes have been found in Curry County in past years through reports from mosquito control, and he believes they were not previously found in Roosevelt County because no one was looking.
The new “possible non-travel related Zika” case occurred in the state’s Broward County. A medical epidemiologist from the U.S CDC, Marc Fischer, arrived on Friday in Florida to support in the department’s investigation with mapping and testing methodologies.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have now been 12 confirmed cases of babies born with microcephaly in the United States, and more than 400 pregnant woman in the continental U.S. have evidence of Zika infection. It is said that Aedes mosquitoes are not usually found in northern Utah where the elderly man with Zika lived.
So far, scientists have said the most frequent transmission is by the bite of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a type of mosquito that is is common throughout Florida.
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As of July 15, doctors in New York City had requested tests for more than 2,000 pregnant women who had traveled to areas where there is active transmission of Zika.
