He said some travelers to Zika-infested countries are unknowingly coming home infected with the virus.
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A long history in the USThe Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also spreads viruses for yellow fever, dengue and chikungunya, has been in the United States since at least the mid-1600s, when the first cases of yellow fever were documented.
Infected mosquitoes can then spread the virus to other people through bites..
Mosquito control experts in Sarasota County believe a new, state-of-the-art facility will help prevent a local outbreak of the Zika virus.
The Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District, an independent special district that addresses mosquito control in 1,058 square miles of California’s Central Valley, is testing use of sterile male mosquitoes to reduce the population of the Zika-carrying Adeses aegypti.
Zika is not carried by all mosquitoes.
[Transmission to offspring] is a mechanism to allow the virus to survive from one season to another.
Earlier this month, a Washington University in St. Louis study suggested Zika might also be transmissible through tears or eye infections.
Everywhere else in the USA, the threat for Zika will be low, the study also said.
To kill adult mosquitoes the county’s workers use backpack-mounted equipment that emits a fog made up of microscopic water droplets that contain Pyrenone 25-5, a pesticide that is considered less harmful than other well-known chemicals like malathion. When they become infected, they can pass on the virus to the next unsuspecting host.
While it is capable of transmitting Zika, it’s a species that would rather bite mammals other than humans for the “blood meal” it needs to reproduce. Women infected by the virus while pregnant are known to have babies with microcephaly, a condition where the fetal brain and head do not fully develop and reach normal size. “No Aedes, No Zika and Dengue”, he said in a statement today.
Also, Zika flies below the public health surveillance radar.
While Tesh conceded that a transmission rate of approximately one in 290 is relatively low, he pointed out that trying to destroy mosquito eggs could be infinitely more hard than killing off an adult mosquito. People usually don’t get sick enough to go to the hospital, and they very rarely die of Zika.
“Despite the fact that Zika has long existed in Southeast Asia, there are still unanswered questions and a knowledge gap regarding the virus among people”, he reportedly said. The overhead tanks, septic tanks and ground water storage tanks are the primary habitant of aedes mosquitos.
“Conditions were more suitable for Aedes aegypti in the northeastern US a couple of hundred years ago when piped water access was lower, sanitation was much worse”, Monaghan said.
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So far, 513 tests have returned with negative results for the virus, and 170 samples are still awaiting a lab result, according to the report.
