Though other cases of Zika have been reported elsewhere in the USA, there are more reported cases in Florida than any other state.
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The mother had become infected with Zika while traveling in Latin America, and gave birth to the baby in Harris County near Houston, according to the state health department.
United States health officials have urged pregnant women to stay clear of the one square-mile affected area.
She and other health officials in Georgia and in other Southern states are watching the situation in Florida carefully.
Craig Scott, program manager for Mosquito and Aquatic Plant Management, said the county has stepped up its efforts, in particular, by spraying when needed in the morning to avoid individuals getting bitten by the Aedes aegypti, the mosquito responsible for spreading Zika. Aedes aegypti is present in 30 US states, and the South’s climate is particularly fertile ground. “Everybody knows what our jobs are if and when an outbreak of Zika ever occurs”, Emmett said. But Georgia is not out of the risk zone.
But the public health officials wanted a margin of safety around any active transmission.
Dr. Gomez said healthcare officials at the Ministry of Health and the Department of Public Health and its Surveillance Unit, in conjunction with officials from the Department of Environmental Health (DEHS), have been collaborating and will continue to collaborate on a number of measures aimed at protection and prevention.
Mosquito season in Georgia usually ends in October, officials said.
“It’s out of hand at this point”, Pallone said, pointing out that there are now Zika cases in Puerto Rico and Florida that believed to have been transmitted by native mosquitoes.
But there’s also a serious health message that needs to go out to all those travelling to Brazil this summer. And it’s prepared to set up a call center in case of an emergency. For pregnant women and their babies, however, Zika can be devastating.
The finding that the affected babies all had patterns of peripheral nerve damage, which had caused contracting of the joints, was “consistent with our knowledge that Zika virus is particularly damaging to nervous tissue”, he said.
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That said, Lanza then began his 30-minute Power Point presentation which was basically “Zika 101” starting with the discovery of this particular Zika virus in Africa in 1947. “People panic and there’s potential for irrational thinking in either direction, not doing enough and doing too much”. Overall, Texas has documented 99 cases of Zika virus disease, including one other case of Zika-linked microcephaly, all related to travel overseas. “It’s not the whole city-it’s a very small part of the city”, Lyle Petersen, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Times.
