A 12th person has been diagnosed with Zika virus in Dallas County, public health department officials say.
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Potjaman Siriarayapon, a doctor who heads the Investigation and Public Health Emergency Response Unit in Thailand’s Bureau of Epidemiology, said health specialists were working to track and contain each instance of the Zika virus. The man is expected to make a full recovery, according to the county health department.
“While Riverside County is one of the last counties in Southern California to have a confirmed case, we always knew it would happen eventually”, Kaiser said in a statement.
Health officials are reminding the public that while Zika is mainly transmitted through Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, other modes of transmission, in particular, sexual transmission, have been documented.
In almost all cases, people caught the virus either while traveling overseas or through sexual activity with a person who had recently traveled overseas (in one case, a person working with Zika in a laboratory became infected.) No one has caught the virus from a mosquito bite in the U.S.
Zika-infected mosquitoes, which spread the virus by biting people, are present in the Dominican Republic. “We can not over-emphasise that all men returning from where local transmission of Zika virus is known to occur, should adopt safer sexual practices or consider abstinence for at least four weeks after return”.
The mosquito that carries Zika has been found in portions of Riverside County, including Riverside, the Coachella Valley, Corona-Norco and parts of the San Jacinto Valley, officials said.
Five cases of Zika virus have been reported in Kansas, all of which originated outside of the United States. Health experts say people should avoid mosquito bites by wearing long sleeves and trousers; stay in air-conditioned places with screened windows and doors to keep mosquitoes outside; and use environmental protection agency-registered insect repellents.
According to the CDC, outbreaks of the Zika virus have occurred in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands before 2015. Symptoms associated with the virus last between seven to 10 days. Common symptoms of Zika virus include fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis (red eyes).
The first patient had traveled June 15-22 to a country where there is an outbreak of Zika, Dr. Williams-Rodriguez said in a press release.
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There is no vaccine for Zika, which has not been acquired anywhere within the U.S.
