Dr. Tom Frieden offered that assessment to a group of reporters as Congress began negotiations on a stopgap spending bill that’s also meant to include long-delayed money to battle Zika.
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Scientists still don’t know the full extent of West Nile’s effects, but today the USA has another beast on its hands: the Zika virus.
Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
The state Department of Health on Friday reported 12 new travel-related cases of Zika, with seven in Miami-Dade, two in Broward County, and one each in Hillsborough, Okaloosa and Orange counties.
In the interim, the administration has shifted about $650 million from other accounts to battle Zika, most of it unused money approved two years ago to fight Ebola.
In addition, one case of locally acquired dengue fever has been reported in Monroe County, with onset in May.
In other developments, the number of local cases in Florida held steady for the third day in a row, and officials note the first known sexual transmission cases in Pennsylvania and the Netherlands.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives offered $1.1 billion in June, but it came with the provision that none of the money could be given to Planned Parenthood because of that group’s endorsement of abortion.
Puerto Rico’s governor wouldn’t authorize naled’s use because of environmental concerns, despite widespread Zika infections there. When the mosquito has its meal of blood, the virus infects the insect, spreading to its salivary glands, from where it passes into the blood of the next human bitten. The WHO said, as in Guinea-Bissau, which has seen a spurt of infections from the African Zika strain, it’s too soon to rule out the possibility of microcephaly and other neurologic complications.
“We are concerned that the naled actually has more of a potential risk of creating the problems we are trying to avert than the actual concern with Zika”, explained protester Brik Viera.
More than 2,900 mosquito samples, about 48,000 mosquitoes total, have been tested since May, officials said.
“Despite relentless efforts by the city and the county, this new discovery shows that the Zika threat continues to grow”.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PDH) today reported the state’s first sexually transmitted Zika case.
This week the World Health Organization updated its guidelines as a result, recommending that both men and women who have been in Zika-affected areas wait at least six months or the duration of their partner’s pregnancy before having unprotected sex.
However, she said, staff are seeing numerous mothers at risk for Zika because of travel, and ask each pregnant woman about possible exposure. Mosquitoes can breed in water trapped in bromeliads’ cylindrical centers.
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“We don’t know what congenital Zika syndrome will look like”, Frieden said.
