However, in the current worsening economic crisis, those who can not afford such amenities are more likely to contract the Zika virus, making it a disease of the impoverished. The warning, the only such travel warning in the United States, recommends pregnant women avoid the area and other visitors take precautions, including applying repellent or wearing trousers and clothes with long sleeves.
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The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency on February 1 this year after a massive outbreak in Brazil where many pregnant women had children born with serious birth defects.
The Tulare County Public Health branch has confirmed that an individual in Tulare County has tested positive for the Zika virus after getting bitten by mosquitoes during recent travels in Central America. Updates will include a CDC-confirmed Zika case count by county and information to better keep Floridians prepared.
Rick Scott also said in a statement today that Florida Health has cleared four more blocks in the Wynwood neighborhood that has been the hot spot for local illnesses.
Overall, 1,825 confirmed cases of Zika exist on the USA mainland, but most of these are related to travel to Zika-infected areas.
Until this week however, there had been no reported cases of birth defects related to Zika in Canada.
The University of Florida’s Tourism Crisis Management Initiative found more than 70 percent of potential visitors are concerned about the mosquito-borne virus.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maps projected the range of the two mosquitoes that carry the virus, Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, to include the southern states. A Zika risk assessment will be conducted by county health department staff and blood and/or urine samples may be collected and sent to labs for testing.
Scott said the state is “confident that our mosquito education, prevention and control efforts are working”. Another $5.2 million in contractual services have been approved, including $4.9 million for local mosquito control. “Every community that has requested funding has received an allocation and we will continue to work closely with them to meet their needs”.
With 14 blocks now cleared, Scott said, “This means the area where we believe active transmissions are occurring in the state is significantly reducing”. “We expect to see more as people travel this summer”. She said $34 million is for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and $47 million is for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
“We now know the molecular pathway, so we made the first big step toward target therapy for Zika-induced microcephaly”, corresponding author Jae Jung said in a university news release.
She said the NIH money was coming from other NIH accounts, which hurts efforts to support the work of the nation’s leading scientists, “But the lack of a clean, bipartisan Zika funding bill has left me no choice but to move forward with this action at this time”.
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The state also has eight public health Zika response teams ready to deploy if local transmission is discovered in Texas.
