No mosquitoes captured in Miami-Dade County to date have tested positive for the Zika virus, according to an official familiar with the Florida Department of Health’s investigation into the nation’s first potential mosquito-borne transmission of the infectious disease.
Advertisement
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will begin making awards totaling almost $60 million to states, cities, and territories to support efforts to protect Americans from Zika virus disease and adverse health outcomes that can result from Zika infection, including the serious birth defect microcephaly.
“The new case in Utah is a surprise, showing that we still have more to learn about Zika”, said Dr. Erin Staples, a medical epidemiologist with the CDC working in Utah.
Health officials predicted that would change this summer once the virus reaches US mosquitoes and have mobilized to keep Zika from spreading beyond isolated clusters of cases. The rest traveled themselves and were likely bitten in countries with Zika outbreaks.
President Barack Obama spoke by phone with Florida Gov. Rick Scott regarding the new Zika case, noting that the CDC already provided $2 million to Florida and anticipates awarding another $5.6 million in Zika funding through a grant this week, the White House said.
In order for the virus to spread, someone would have to come back from an infected area carrying the Zika virus and be bitten within two weeks by the Aedes mosquito, which has not been found in recent years to be in Utah.
In a statement released Tuesday, the Florida Department of Health said it was investigating “a possible non-travel related case of Zika virus in Miami-Dade County”. They’ve been spraying to kill mosquitoes and emptying containers of the water mosquitoes need to breed. In February, the World Health Organization declared the virus, which has spread throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, an worldwide emergency. Health authorities in Utah are investigating a unique case of Zika found in a person who had been c…
“Our best option is to try to find these mosquitoes quickly so that way we can eliminate them prior to their establishment”, said Ary Faraji, manager of the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District. “Once they become established, it is extremely hard to get rid of those species”.
There is no vaccine for Zika. The virus is typically transmitted through the bite of Aedes mosquitoes. Because Zika can spread from an infected man to his sex partner, pregnant women should have their male partners use a condom correctly every time or abstain from sex.
Advertisement
Zika virus has been linked to severe brain birth defects, including microcephaly, when a baby is born with an abnormally small head, if a pregnant mother is infected. These infections are thought to have occurred because the patients’ partners had traveled to countries where Zika is circulating, the CDC said.
