“We have not been told by Health Department officials about Zika cases in Miami Beach as of 7:30 p.m. ET”, Melissa Berthier, Public Relations Manager at the Miami Beach mayor’s office told CNN Thursday evening.
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Florida health officials have confirmed 12 new travel-related cases of the Zika virus in Florida. Twenty-five other cases have been reported in Washington. The CDC has already issued an advisory for pregnant women who are planning on traveling to the Wynwood area-the first one issued for the continental US-but this new development could mean an expansion of that advisory.
The CDC also said pregnant women and their partners may want to consider postponing nonessential travel to all of Miami-Dade County if they’re concerned about potential exposure to the virus. “It is hard to predict how long active transmission will continue”.
Presently, the Zika virus has experienced a new trend – the spread of the virus from one state to another. There were no reported cases of Zika transmission by mosquitoes in the state.
Another infection zone was previously identified in Miami’s Wynwood arts district.
Those guidelines define a local outbreak as two or more people infected who do not share a household, with travel and sexual transmission ruled out, and who acquired the disease within one square mile over a period of two weeks or more.
In other Zika news, two more countries, Haiti and Guatemala, now have confirmed cases of microcephaly linked to Zika virus. Of those visitors, 48 percent stayed in Miami Beach, the bureau said.
Many people infected with Zika virus do not get sick.
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According to the Herald, Miami Beach is home to half of the county’s hotel rooms and the region depends on its $24 billion-a-year tourism industry. Neither the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Florida Department of Health has released information on the cases or the exact location in Miami Beach. To assist in this effort, I have also directed DOH to work with DBPR to provide educational materials and offer mosquito spraying at no cost to these businesses in Miami-Dade County. Nearly all originated in the one-square-mile Wynwood neighborhood of Miami-Dade County.
