Gov. Rick Scott announced Monday that Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood was no longer considered a zone of active Zika transmission.
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Dr. Amesh Adalja of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said Scott is “rightly touting the major progress in Wynwood in controlling Zika”, adding that he is also trying to lift the stigma on that area where the first local transmission of Zika occurred in a USA state.
“The message with Wynwood is it was a huge success, ‘” said Dr. Lyle Peterson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Everyone should be coming back here and enjoy themselves”, Scott said at a press conference in Miami.
Over the past month, mosquito control officials used the insecticides Bti and naled in the Wynwood neighborhood.
The Miami neighborhood where a local outbreak of Zika was first detected has been declared free of ongoing Zika transmission.
The lifting of the state travel warning was welcome news for city officials and business owners like Joseph Furst, who said they have “suffocated” during the 49 days that the travel warning was in effect. And it takes a while for a mosquito to bite someone, become infected, and for that mosquito to then bite someone else and infect them.
Scott encouraged people to return to Wynwood. “We’ve also hired additional staff to run more tests at the same time”, she said. The updated CDC warning now includes the Wynwood neighborhood as part of the more general, less stringent guidelines covering all of Miami-Dade County, though it continues to advise that men and women who traveled to Wynwood any time between June 15 and September 18 should wait at least eight weeks before trying to become pregnant.
Scott said his administration is actively offering assistance to local businesses that have been negatively affected by the Zika scare.
All of the incidents have been travel-related, the department said. The apparent victory over Zika in Wynwood – located east of Interstate 95 and south of Interstate 195 – shows that it is possible to contain a virus that has rapidly infected large numbers of people in Puerto Rico and Brazil.
“This outbreak would have kept going without the aerial spraying”, Petersen said.
In his announcement, Scott also asked the CDC for another epidemiologist to support its efforts against the virus and for a call with community leaders and clinicians in Miami Beach to answer questions and cover the latest guidance.
The fight against Zika rages on in other parts of Miami.
The main threat is to pregnant women. “Every minute that passes that Congress doesn’t approve funding means more time is lost from researching this virus to find a vaccine to help pregnant women and their developing babies”.
“Moving forward this is great news”.
“Despite this, the federal government still can not agree on spending money to stomp out this serious disease”.
The agency continues to advise that pregnant women consider postponing non-essential travel to all of Miami-Dade County including the Wynwood area.
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